ANGELS UNDONE BY ROOKIE WASHBURN'S STRONG EFFORT GOES TO WASTE SEATTLE 3, ANGELS 2.

Byline: Gabe Lacques Staff Writer

SEATTLE - Should the Angels fail to make the playoffs by the slimmest of margins, they will look back and remember a handful of games and a group of antagonists, both likely and unlikely, that led to their demise.

Ichiro Suzuki would fall in the former category, Bobby Madritsch and Randy Winn the latter.

While the Seattle Mariners have long ago given up on this season, they have found solace in the record-setting hit pace of Suzuki and the unlikely rise of rookie pitcher Madritsch. They set the stage for victory, and Winn ensured it with a two-run pinch-hit homer that produced a 3-2 win over the Angels before 28,408 at Safeco Field on Tuesday night.

Once again, the Angels (82-62) blew a chance to move closer in their divisional and wild-card chases. Oakland lost to Texas, but thanks to the Angels' dismal offensive output, the Athletics maintained their two-game lead in the American League West.

Boston also lost, cracking the door open in the wild-card race, but the Angels remained 4 1/2 games behind the Red Sox with just 18 to play.

This loss hardly was the fault of starter Jarrod Washburn, who was bombed for five third-inning runs in his previous outing against Toronto. This time, he shut out the Mariners into the fifth inning. That's when two walks preceded Suzuki's ground-rule double which drove in Jose Lopez to break up a scoreless tie.

It was Suzuki's 232nd hit this year, keeping him on pace to break George Sisler's 84-year-old record of 257.

But the Angels will take a 6 2/3-inning, two-run outing like they got from Washburn (11-7), every night. He left trailing 1-0 and had thrown just 97 pitches when manager Mike Scioscia came to get him.

The move did not work out. Reliever Brendan Donnelly gave up a pinch- hit, two-run home run to Winn that extended Seattle's lead to 3-0.

The Angels cobbled together four singles off Madritsch and reliever J.J. Putz in the ninth to pull within 3-2 and get the tying run to second, but Putz got Jeff DaVanon on a fly ball to right field to end it.

Putz's save ensured that Madritsch recorded two tightly-contested wins over the Angels.

Madritsch, who as recently as 2001 was pitching in an independent league, was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma in July and worked out of the bullpen. On July 29, he shut out the Angels for the final four innings of a 6-5 13-inning Mariners victory, earning him a slot in their rotation.

On Tuesday, he showed why by taking a shutout into the ninth, striking out seven and improving to 3-2 with a 2.88 ERA as a starter.

Similar to Washburn in that he's left-handed with a fastball that tops out around 91 mph, Madritsch (5-2) changed speeds with aplomb. He held the Angels to four singles through eight shutout innings before being chased after singles by Vladimir Guerrero and Garret Anderson put the Angels on the scoreboard.

In the first eight innings, the Angels advanced just two runners to second base, and their lone threat died quietly in the second, when singles by Troy Glaus and Jose Guillen were sandwiched around strikeouts by Anderson and Bengie Molina.

Washburn was nearly as good, though his three walks led to his demise. He walked Lopez and Willie Bloomquist in the fifth. Suzuki, who posted a five-hit game in July against the Angels, broke out of his six at-bat ``drought'' by lacing a double that hopped the wall in right for a 1-0 lead.

Washburn breezed through the sixth, but in the seventh, he gave up a leadoff double to Hiram Bocachica before getting the next two outs. At 97 pitches, Scioscia felt Washburn was done.

So he summoned Donnelly, who grooved his second pitch to Winn for the home run that proved to be the game-winner.

Gabe Lacques, [phone]

gabe.lacques(at)sgvn.com

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