SEATTLE (Ticker) -- Chan Ho Park walked the ballpark, but he walked away with his first victory of the season.
Park survived five shaky innings and Rafael Palmeiro belted his fourth homer of the season as the Texas Rangers posted a 4-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners.
Texas notched a second straight victory for the first time this season despite the travails of Park (1-2). The Korean righthander yielded one run and three hits and issued seven walks, including five in the first two innings.
"He has always been a guy who can find a way to get out of there with minimal damage," Texas catcher Chad Kreuter said. "With all the damage he avoided he made some great pitches and got out some great hitters."
Seattle left the bases loaded in the first and second innings, failing to score on both occasions. Park had a bizarre second inning, striking out the side, including Randy Winn and Bret Boone to end the inning.
Palmeiro hit his 494th career home run, a two-run blast off Mariners starter Freddy Garcia (1-2), in the fifth inning to open up a 4-1 lead for Texas. It moved Palmeiro into 19th place on the all-time list, one ahead of Lou Gehrig.
"It's better when the home run means something," Palmeiro said. "I'm not really too worried about that right now. It's nice and all, but I just want to keep doing what I am doing and not worry about the numbers."
Texas closer Ugueth Urbina recorded his fourth save in as many chances by retiring the final three hitters in the ninth inning after a leadoff walk to John Olerud.
Seattle stranded 14 runners, including 10 in the five innings against Park. The Mariners walked a total of 11 times, but only one of them came home.
"You know you are going to go through some periods like this," Seattle manager Bob Melvin said. "We got some guys on obviously. We had a chance to put him away and knock him (Park) out of the game, and we didn't."
Ichiro Suzuki and Winn walked to open the first inning before Park retired Boone and Olerud. Mike Cameron walked to fill the bases before Mark McLemore flied out to end the threat.
After Jeff Cirillo took a called third strike to begin the second, Park issued walks to Carlos Guillen and Suzuki around a single by Dan Wilson. He recovered to get Winn and Boone.
"It was tough but I did what I was supposed to do," Park said through an interpretor. "When men got on base I kept battling. I just kept trying to focus on the next pitch and the next guy."
Garcia allowed just a pair of hits in the first three innings before former Mariner Alex Rodriguez and Palmeiro opened the fourth inning with singles. Rodriguez scored on a wild pitch by Garcia and a two-out infield hit by Carl Everett made it 2-0.
Park ran into more trouble in the fourth inning despite getting the first two hitters. Winn walked with two outs and went to second on a balk. Boone was hit by a pitch and Olerud's RBI single sliced the deficit to 2-1.
"It's kind of sad because we have done so well up until this point and now we are struggling to score some runs," Cameron said. "It's just a matter of getting good pitches to hit and putting them in play and we have been missing the easy ones."
But Rodriguez walked with two outs in the fifth inning, setting up Palmeiro's key at-bat. Palmeiro connected off a 2-1 delivery deep into center field for a three-run cushion.
C.J. Nitkowski relieved Park in the sixth and surrendered a sacrifice fly by Winn before getting Olerud to bounce into a double play to end the inning. Nitkowski was lifted with one out in the seventh in favor of Francisco Cordero, who retired five of the six hitters he faced and did not allow a hit.
Garcia yielded all four runs and seven hits in five innings. He fell to 4-2 lifetime against the Rangers.
