ARLINGTON, Texas — The good news for Texas Rangers closer Joe Nathan is that he's been around the game long enough to know how to bounce back from poor outings.
That was little consolation to fans of the Texas Rangers Wednesday night.
Nathan couldn't protect a 3-1 lead as the Mariners scored three times off him in the ninth inning to rally for a 4-3 victory over Texas.
The Rangers have lost two games this season and Nathan has taken the loss in both. The first time it was one pitch that did him in as he allowed a solo homer in a 4-3 loss to Chicago.
Wednesday night it was a lot more than one hit that hurt him.
Nathan allowed four hits in his inning of work as RBI from Jesus Montero and Michael Saunders allowed Seattle to tie the game. Nathan still had a chance to preserve a tie game but John Jaso lined a two out, 2-2 pitch into center to put the Mariners ahead with his first RBI of the season.
Nathan, who signed a two-year contract with the Rangers in the offseason, had problems with his slider and a Seattle team that had just seven hits in the first eight innings took advantage of it.
"They weren't terrible pitches to be honest with you and hats off to them," said Nathan, who has given up four of the five runs allowed by the Texas bullpen this season and has an ERA of 9.00. "They weren't too bad of pitches and I can't blame it on one pitch being up and them smacking it."
Nathan, who has 263 career saves, compared the start of this season to the one he had with Minnesota in 2004. Nathan had an ERA of 7.36 after four appearances that season but didn't allow another run the rest of that month and went on to save 44 games.
Even though he's nine years older, Nathan is confident he can rebound again.
"This is one of those things where it's not the first time I've given up a crooked number in the first inning," he said. "It's not going to be the last time. These guys are big league hitters and you just home more times than not you go out there and put a zero up."
Both of losses for the Rangers this season have come when Nathan has pitched in the second game of back-to-back outings. Nathan said that wasn't an issue Wednesday because he said he felt great. Manager Ron Washington also didn't see that as an issue for his closer.
"I thought he was throwing the ball well," Washington said. "Maybe location had something to do with it, but I thought he was throwing the ball well, 93, 94 (mph). It's a big league club over there. You know how many innings we had them down, but right there in the ninth they put some runs on the board."
Nathan's blown save spoiled a dominant outing by Texas starter Colby Lewis.
Lewis pitched 6 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just five hits and striking out six. While Lewis may have deserved a better fate after leaving the game with his club clinging to a 1-0 lead, he certainly wasn't pointing any fingers at Nathan.
"It's just one of those deals," said Lewis, whose ERA dropped to 1.42. "He's 30-something saves away from 300. There's nothing here he can't bounce back from. There's nothing we can't bounce back from."
That sentiment was shared by other Rangers too.
"We have all the confidence in the world in Joe," said Michael Young, whose RBI single in the first gave Texas a 1-0 lead. "He'll be fine. We're looking forward to getting another lead and getting him back out there."
The dominance by Lewis allowed the Rangers to stretch the scoreless streak they had against Seattle to 23 innings before the Mariners scored a run off Alexi Ogando in the eighth inning.
That didn't seem like a big deal at the time because Texas had added to a 1-0 lead with back-to-back homers from Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus in the seventh inning.
Ogando turned the ball over to Nathan with Texas up 3-1 but the ninth got off to an ominous start as Justin Smoak singled to open the inning and Kyle Seager followed with a double to put runners on second and third for Montero.
