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Wow. What else do you really say, but, wow. A fantastic game that had a little bit everything, good pitching, solid defensive plays and the dramatic ending.

Be honest, did the hairs on the back of your neck and arms stand up when Ken Griffey Jr. strode to home plate with his signature pigeon-toed strut as the remaining crowd at Safeco Field roared and flash bulbs exploded? It was one of the better moments of a seasons, filled with good moments. Think about the good moments last year. Right now I can’t remember one.

“It’s just destiny when he’s up,” said Chris Jakubauskas, who got the win in relief. “It’s 20 plus years in the big leagues. He’s been in every situation at least twice and probably knows what pitch is going to thrown before the pitcher does.”

Junior provided the heroics as only he can. And of course, he could only comment on it as only he can.

“The first eight innings was going along nicely and then all of sudden the brakes got put on,” he said. “A couple guys started to get hunger and I just decided to send them home at a reasonable hour.”

He let that be known to manager Don Wakamatsu.

“Griffey said that if I had been a little smarter and gotten him into the game a little sooner, we could have all gone home earlier and had a nice dinner,” Wakamatsu said. “A guy like him is made for the spotlight.”

But for as much as Junior wanted to make light of his game-winning single in the bottom of the 14th, he also tried to keep things perspective.

“In all seriousness, these guys battled all day,” he said. “It’s the least I can do is go up and give them a good at-bat. From 7 p.m. till 10:50, they made some great plays defensively. It was an unbelievable game.”

For a game to reach 14 innings at 0-0, two things need to happen – 1. good pitching, 2. solid defense.

“I don’t think people realize it,” Griffey said. “We were sitting up here talking about all the amazing plays that were being made.”

The good pitching was apparent from the start as starting pitchers Felix Hernandez and Mark Buerhle both gave solid outings.

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Well, that was interesting.

If you noticed, I stopped doing game updates in the seventh inning. Why? Well, you have to start writing for the newspaper when a game was dragging like today. One thing you have to do is start writing as if the outcome has been decided and then change according to.

So I went through four leads …
1. Felix didn’t bail the Mariners out, teammates couldn’t bail him out.
2. Felix couldn’t bail the Mariners out like usual, but his teammates bailed him out.
3. Mariners put up valiant effort despite a less than stellar performance from Felix and lose in extra innings
4. Mariners bail Felix out a little with a furious rally and Ryan Langerhans’ first career walk-off homer.

And all of that occurred in the span about 40 minutes.

The bad part is that because of the lateness of the game and our earlier deadlines, I couldn’t get any player reaction for the game story in the newspaper. But I got some for the blog.

“That was a battle,” Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said. “It would be a really easy for a club – when your ace goes out there and gives up some runs to just die and fold and give up. But we just battled and battled and what a way to win a ball game.”

Battled till Langerhans ended the battle.

Obviously, Langerhans was a happy guy. He got an ice cream pie to the face and a beer shower in the shower.

“It was funny I was trying to do it in the ninth and struck out,” Langerhans said. “And there I was just trying to get a base hit and keep the game alive, and I hit one out.”

That it came off of Howell seems pretty surprising, since lefties were just 16-for-61 against Howell with no homers this season. Langerhans had never faced Howell before. And asked Alan Cochrell for a quick scouting report. He told me, “he’s got a good curveball and he likes to use it.”

Langerhans fell behind 2-2, but didn’t look overwhelmed.

“I was just trying to see something up and hit it back up the middle, but I was lucky enough to get a hanging breaking ball,” Langerhans said.

Hanging might be an understatement, look at the pitch tracker.

So did he know it was gone?

“I was pretty sure when it came off the bat,” he said. “I saw that (Gabe) Gross didn’t break right away on it.”

Langerhans flew around the bases. There was no milking his home run trot.

“I was ready to get home and see my teammates,” he said.

Once he got there, he received the now traditional pummeling of head and body slaps from a circle of teammates. But nothing has felt better to Langerhans.

“It was great,” he said. “I’ve gotten to be the one slapping, but I’ve never got to be the one being slapped.”

Wakamatsu was quite pleased.

But he also delivered a bit of a reminder that Langerhans would have never gotten to the plate had Franklin Gutierrez, who already got the golden sombrero (four strikeouts in the game), not been able to coax a lead-off walk.

“He comes up there and battles Howell who is awfully tough,” Wakamatsu said.

Well Gutierrez got the benefit of a few calls, as Howell got squeezed a little by home plate ump Mark Carlson.

As for Felix Hernandez, Wakamatsu thought his stuff was there – but it was almost too good – which is part of the reason he couldn’t spot his two-seamer and Rob Johnson had trouble catching the ball at times.

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BOX SCORE

Sorry for the delay, but I had to leave the press box at Safeco and retreat back to Tacoma in search of air conditioning, which I found at the West End Pub & Grill – a one-time favorite of former Rainier and Aussie Chris Snelling.

But it was the big Aussie left-hander that stole the show today. We began the day under the idea that it could be Roy Halladay’s final start as a Blue Jay – and it still may be. And if it is, Rowland-Smith and the Mariners made sure it will go down as a loss.

The Hyphen as he is called, well, for obviously reasons, pitched his best outing this season and perhaps last, throwing seven strong innings, including the first six without giving up a hit.

“He was locked in,” Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said.

And he worked fast – think the opposite of Garrett Olson and Miguel Batista. Rowland-Smith worked with a steady pace and rhythm.

“That’s something I want to do,” he said. “I’ve had games where I’ve done that. I remember Raul telling me last year one game how much the fielder loved it.”

RRS would have had a perfect six innings had he not hit Kevin Millar with a pitch – which I thought looked like retaliation for Kenji Johjima getting hit with a pitch by Halladay in the top of the inning. But no hits, and not really any hard hit balls.

Rowland-Smith had joked that he would “need to throw a no-hitter to beat Halladay” before the game. And for six inning he was doing exactly that.

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It appears that the hapless Kansas City Royals, who blew a 6-2 lead in a 9-6 loss to the Angels, will do no favors for the Mariners, so Seattle simply can’t afford to lose any games right now. And they certainly can’t lose a game with Felix Hernandez on the mound.

But for seven innings it certainly looked that way. Felix was solid as usual. He shook off a tough first inning and then gave the Mariners nation a near second coronary in two days when he twisted his ankle on Marcus Thames’ infield bloop fly.

Wakamatsu had a sick feeling in his stomach as Felix lay on the infield grass not getting up immediately.

"The same thing that happened with Franklin Gutierrez last night," Wakamatsu said. "You hold your breath and hope it’s not severe. After the game, we checked on him, and he had no ill-effects from it."

What did Felix think?

“I’m used to it,” he said.

Perhaps, but is there a need to go for that play. It’s not a high percentage play.

“It’s a flyball and I’m going to try and catch it,” he said.

Apparently, he’s channeling his inner-Franklin Gutierrez.

Ever the competitor, Felix got up threw a few warm up pitches and proceeded to pitch the next 4 1/3 inning allowing just one hit.

“That shows his competitiveness and how much he battled to get into that seventh inning,” Wakamatsu said. “I thought he did a great job, came out and competed, his stuff was good. Just the pitch count got up a little bit. Other than that, you can’t ask for anything more.”

And yet, after seven innings, he still was behind 1-0 and looking at a loss.

Why?

Well, Tigers starter Armando Galarraga – a fellow Venezuelan and friend of Felix – was better.

He allowed on 1 hit – a Ryan Langerhans single to right – over 7 1/3 innings.

"He changes speeds, he doesn’t throw anything in the middle of the plate," Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu said. "He threw a heck of a ballgame. He kept us off balance and threw a lot of pitches right on the corner. We couldn’t square anything up. He seemed to want us to swing a little bit off the plate. He did a nice job."

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David Aardsma’s raises his hands after Ichiro makes a great leaping catch at the wall on Victor Martinez’s deep shot to right so secure the Mariners win.

Did you honestly think he wouldn’t catch it?

Well Don Wakamatsu couldn’t watch to find out.

"I didn’t look," he admitted. "You look at the reaction of the hitter, and I think he thought he got it. I actually didn’t see the catch."

Though Wakamatsu didn’t watch it, he never lost hope that Ichiro would

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Apparently Franklin Gutierrez isn’t like most players or me or a lot of people in that he doesn’t hold grudges.

If Gutierrez got some pleasure for hitting the key two-run home run in tonight’s win along with making yet another brilliant leaping catch, he isn’t letting on.

One would think he would derive some added satisfaction beating his former team, that it appears may have given up on him a little prematurely.

His manager Don Wakamatsu understood if he did.

"I think for anybody who performs against a former team it’s always special," Wakamatsu said.

But Gutierrez, who might be the most laid-back guy and quiet person in the cluhhouse, just shook his head at such a notion.

"I don’t think like that," he said. "I treat them like any other team. I represent the Seattle Mariners now. Some people think it’s great to do against your old team. But for me it’s like any other team."

Of course the circumstances of his departure weren’t tenuous. Gutierrez was one of the key pieces in the three-team trade that sent Seattle close J.J. Putz to the New York Mets in the offseason.

Gutierrez holds no ill will for Cleveland trading him.

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(Sorry for the delay, thought it posted earlier, but there was some reason it didn’t)

When you need a win after a loss, you turn to Felix Hernandez. And Ronny Cedeno?

Obviously, Felix is a guy you think can turn things around after a loss.

Why?

Because he’s done it all season long. Of all the numbers that Hernandez has put up thus far, and there are some impressive ones …

&bull a 10-3 record, a 2.51 ERA
&bull a 6-0 record over his last 10 starts with a 1.30 ERA
&bull a scoreless streak of 22 innings
&bull throwing at least seven innings in his last eight starts.

Perhaps the most impressive number is that Hernandez is 9-2 in starting games following a Mariners loss.

"That’s an ace, that’s an All-Star," Wakamatsu said.

The stat was a surprise to Felix.

"It’s good," he said. "I didn’t even know about that."

How good is Felix? Ask one of his teammates, who used to have to face him.

"Not very fun," Hannahan summed up the experience. "I’m very happy I won’t have to face him anymore."

Instead, Hannahan stood and watched Cleveland hitters go through what he used to.

"He throws three pitches for strikes anytime he wants to and he throws 97 mph with sink," Hannahan said. "Nothing the guy throws is straight. You think you’re in a hitters count next thing here comes a changeup or a curveball."

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Perhaps manager Don Wakamatsu summed tonight’s loss perfectly when he said: "Not exactly the game we were looking for to come out and start the second half.”

No, skip it was not. It was ugly four errors, two wild pitches, seven runners left on base but it all started with Garrett Olson’s outing of 2 2/3 innings.

“I think we’ve talked all year long the importance of the starting pitcher establishing a tempo,” Wakamatsu said. “I think it was two-fold. No. 1, I didn’t think

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