DENVER – Kevin Millwood tossed a two-hitter for his first shutout in nearly nine years and Mike Carp hit a solo homer, helping the Seattle Mariners snap a four-game skid with a 4-0 win over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.
It was also the 22nd complete game of the 37-year-old righty's career.
Millwood (2-4) comfortably cruised through this game and didn't surrender his first hit until two outs in the sixth. He struck out seven and walked one. He didn't allow a runner to reach third until the ninth inning, but got Carlos Gonzalez to line out to end the game.
The Mariners improved to 2-6 on their 10-game, four-city road swing.
Carp hit his third homer of the season in the second, a towering shot to the deepest part of the park. Kyle Seager had an RBI single and drove in another on a sacrifice fly. John Jaso added an insurance run the ninth by bringing in Seager on a sac fly.
The Mariners improved to 2-6 on their 10-game, four-city road swing.
Alex White (0-3) was the hard-luck loser, dropping his sixth straight start in a dubious string that dates back to Sept. 16. After struggling early, White settled into a groove. He gave up three runs — two earned — and seven hits in seven solid innings.
After bouncing around, Millwood may have finally found a home with the Mariners.
The journeyman pitcher shuffled around the minor leagues with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for much of last season. He joined the Rockies rotation last August in an emergency situation, when Juan Nicasio was lost for the year after taking a line drive to the right temple and suffering a fractured skull along with a neck injury.
Millwood wound up 4-3 wearing Colorado's purple pinstripes.
He once again had to prove himself this season, signing a minor league contract with Seattle. He started winless in his first six games this season, before beating the Yankees last Sunday.
Among all active pitchers, Millwood ranks fourth innings pitched (2,609), strikeouts (2,011) and games started (423). He's also eighth in wins (165).
He flirted with a no-hitter, giving up his only two hits in the sixth inning. The first was on Marco Scutaro's chopper that Seager couldn't snare in the hole between third and short. The official scorer took a good, long look at the play before ruling it a hit. Jordan Pacheco followed with a single up the middle, but Scutaro was thrown out by Michael Saunders as he tried to advance to third.
Millwood already has one no-hitter under his belt as he bottled up the San Francisco Giants in a 1-0 win on April 27, 2003, when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Relying on a 91-mph fastball and an effective slider, Millwood baffled the Rockies all evening.
The Seattle pitching staff remains red hot against the National League. Last season, the Mariners had a 1.68 ERA as they set a single-season interleague record. Millwood got them off to another good start in 2012.
All this against the Rockies, too, a team that's prospered in interleague play. Their 56-38 mark since 2006 is by far the best among NL teams.
A nifty slide by Ichiro Suzuki in the sixth staked the Mariners to a 3-0 lead, which was more than enough for Millwood. The speedy Suzuki got a good jump as he tagged on Seager's shallow fly. Although Gonzalez's throw was on target — and arrived about the same time — Suzuki managed to avoid Wilin Rosario's tag before slapping his hand on the plate.
The Mariners scratched out a run in the first when Saunders laced a triple into the right-center gap and was brought in when Seager blooped a single center.
Seager actually knows White quite well, since both were teammates at North Carolina (2007-09). So was infielder Dustin Ackley and the trio helped the Tar Heels to a 159-48 record during their stint at the school and three trips to the College World Series.
The swarm of bees that suddenly made Coors Field its new hive on Thursday brought back painful memories for Michael Cuddyer. That's why he stayed clear of the buzzing mass which attached itself to a post near the Rockies' dugout.
When Cuddyer was 17 years old, he was picking up the mail when he was stung more than dozen times by a bunch of bees that were residing underneath the mailbox.
"I was in the car and I couldn't get out. I finally fell out of my car. It was bad," Cuddyer recounted. "So, yeah, I'm terrified of bees."
NOTES: Seattle has a pair of no-hitters in team history, the last by Chris Bosio on April 22, 1993, in a 7-0 win over Boston. Randy Johnson has the other on June 2, 1990, against Detroit. ... Nicasio had a bruise on his right thigh after being hit by a line drive in the first inning Thursday. ... LHP Jorge De La Rosa (shoulder) allowed one run and three hits over four innings in a rehab start at Double-A Tulsa on Thursday.
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