Jeremy Reed looked to have saved the night for the Mariners with an RBI single in the 10th, but Mark Lowe loaded the bases with two out in the bottom of the frame and served up a first-pitch single to Joe Inglett that loses it for Seattle.

Inglett's ball went off the glove of a leaping Ichiro. Two runs came in and Seattle loses 5-4. That kind of night.

"I think I read it,'' Ichiro said, through an interpreter, of how he played the ball off the bat.

"I have to catch it like that because it touched my glove,'' he said.

In other words, he timed his leap OK. Feels it was his play to make.

On to J.J. Putz. who blew a save in the eighth. Putz had trouble getting his splitter over to the first three hitters, made an adjusment, then got out of the rest of the inning unscathed. But he allowed the tying run to score.

"The toughest thing with being a reliever is you don't have a lot of time to be able to find things,'' he said. "You've got to be quick. Today, I wasn't quick enough.''

Putz still took plenty of positives out of the outing. It wasn't perfect, but he eventually did find the splitter. With more outings, he feels it will come to him quicker.

"It's just one of those things where the more you throw, the more out of it you get, the better,'' he said. "Obviously, the better you're going to be with stuff, command and everything like that. I had it the other day against Boston. I threw some great splits there and then today, for whatever reason, it was flat early.

"But I was able to make an adjustment. It could have been a lot worse.''

Not much else to say. Miguel Batista came out of the game mid-batter because he "was gassed'' is what manager Jim Riggleman said. Riggleman later pulled Arthur Rhodes after a passed ball had moved a runner into scoring position with him facing a righty hitter. That's a potential positioning problem with fielders and you're better off having a righty in there.

By the way, Lowe was set to go up to three innings. Riggleman then would have put R.A. Dickey in and gone with a combination of relievers tomorrow. No Jamie Burke. Jeff Clement isn't healthy enough to catch yet and Burke was the only catcher left.

So, that's six losses in a row. Going to be a long final two months, I suspect.