Haren pitches seven innings of three-hit ball; Angels beat Mariners 3-0 for three-game sweep

Haren shuts down Mariners, Angels win 3-0

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Dan Haren held Seattle to three singles over seven innings, Mike Napoli homered and the Angels scored another run on a catcher’s interference call with the bases loaded in a 3-0 victory over the Mariners on Sunday.

The Angels, who are in third place in the AL West after winning three straight division titles, completed a three-game sweep and won the season series 14-5. It’s the fifth straight year in which they reached double digits in victories against the Mariners, the longest such streak in the franchise’s 50-year history.

Haren (3-4) struck out six, walked three and did not allow a hit after Russell Branyan’s leadoff single in the fourth. Seattle had only three baserunners after that against the left-hander, two on walks and another on a throwing error by Napoli when he fielded Franklin Gutierrez’s grounder to first base and tried to get a force at second on Branyan.

Any combination of five Los Angeles wins and/or Seattle losses would mathematically clinch the Mariners’ second straight last-place finish and sixth in eight seasons. They are 13-18 since Daren Brown took over as manager after the firing of Don Wakamatsu on Aug. 9.

Rookie Jordan Walden pitched the eighth inning and Fernando Rodney got three outs for his 10th save in 15 chances.

Jason Vargas (9-10) lost his fifth straight start, allowing two runs — one earned — and seven hits over seven innings with four strikeouts. The left-hander was 1-2 with a 2.06 ERA in his five starts against the Angels this season.

The Angels got an unearned run in the first when Josh Bard was called for catcher’s interference with the bases loaded and Hideki Matsui at the plate. Erick Aybar and Howie Kendrick opened the inning with bunt singles to the left of the mound on Vargas’ second and third pitches of the game.

Juan Rivera drove in the Angels’ second run with a bloop single in the sixth after a double by Napoli, who hit his 24th homer in the eighth against Ryan Rowland-Smith.

Haren escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth when he got Bard to fly out to center field. Bard’s only other at-bat with the bases loaded this season was at Cleveland on Aug. 14, when he hit his first career grand slam.

NOTES: This was the 18th time in Vargas’ 28 starts this season that the Mariners scored fewer than three runs while he was in the game. … Angels DH Matsui batted .291 with six homers and 14 RBIs against the Mariners this season. … Seattle RF Ichiro Suzuki batted .359 with a home run and 11 RBIs against the Angels. Suzuki’s 248 career hits against the Halos are the fifth-highest total behind Hall of Famers George Brett, Carl Yastrzemski, Cal Ripken Jr., and Paul Molitor. … The Mariners return to Safeco Field Monday night against Boston trying to snap a streak of 15 straight hone games with three runs or less. It’s the longest such streak since a 15-game stretch by the 1954 Baltimore Orioles at Memorial Stadium. … The Angels have to go no worse than 6-13 the rest of the way to avoid tying the team’s worst record in Mike Scioscia’s 10 previous seasons as manager. The 2001 squad finished 75-87 and a franchise-worst 41 games out of first place — just one year before winning their only World Series title as a wild card. … The Angels have used six different leadoff hitters and four different third baseman this season in place of Chone Figgins, who left them to sign a four-year, $36 million free agent contract with the Mariners in December. Figgins, the Angels’ all-time leader in stolen bases with 280, has 37 this season in 49 attempts. Aybar leads the Halos with 20 steals.