SEATTLE – Yuniesky Betancourt hit a tiebreaking homer in the seventh inning and Miguel Batista pitched the surging Seattle Mariners to a 3-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday.

Jose Guillen also homered and Raul Ibanez had an RBI double for the Mariners, who won for the seventh time in eight games and sent Chicago to its fourth consecutive loss.

Betancourt hit a 1-0 fastball into Seattle’s bullpen beyond left field off rookie John Danks, who looked to Safeco Field’s closed roof in exasperation. Danks (0-4) allowed six hits and two walks in 6 2-3 innings.

The White Sox are on an eight-game road trip. They visit the Los Angeles Angels next before heading to Minnesota.

Batista (3-2) gave up two runs and five hits in 7 1-3 innings against a lineup missing injured Jim Thome and Scott Podsednik. The right-hander allowed solo homers to Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko but just three singles besides that.

George Sherrill finished the eighth inning and J.J. Putz pitched the ninth for his fifth save in five chances, getting Rob Mackowiak to ground into a game-ending double play.

Betancourt has three home runs this year. The shortstop known more for his slick fielding than his bat had nine in 217 career games entering the season.

Danks, the ninth overall selection in the 2003 draft by Texas, came to Chicago in a trade that sent Brandon McCarthy to the Rangers. Danks struck out four.

Chicago, the worst-hitting team in the major leagues with a .222 average entering the game, scored only two runs in Danks’ first four starts. The White Sox equaled that with the homers by Dye and Konerko.

Guillen answered Dye’s home run in the second by hitting Danks’ first pitch in the bottom half off the top of the scoreboard in left-center, his third homer of the season. Danks slapped his glove and yelled at himself after the pitch.

But Konerko answered that by going with Batista’s outside pitch and lofting it into the first row of bleachers beyond right field to make it 2-1 in the fourth.

Danks cruised through the fifth inning having allowed only two hits. He threw just five pitches to retire the Mariners in order in the fifth, thanks largely to a fine, diving stop and quick throw by third baseman Joe Crede on a grounder by Betancourt.

But with two outs in the sixth, Jose Vidro singled and Ibanez hit a liner down the left-field line. As Mackowiak prepared for the ball to reach him near the left-field corner, it changed direction while banging off the section of box seats that juts out toward the field. By the time Mackowiak retrieved the ball, Vidro was on his way home to tie the game.

Notes: Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen said he won’t make major changes to his lineup or do much else except keep faith in his struggling hitters as he waits for Thome and Podsednik to return. “Who’s to blame? Everybody,” Guillen said. “I blame me. I blame Walk (Greg Walker, the hitting coach). I blame the lineup.” … The crowd of 16,555 was the second-smallest in the history of Safeco Field, which opened in 1999. The game was originally supposed to be a night game, but was recently switched to an early afternoon start to allow Seattle to travel to Boston for a makeup game Thursday night.

AP-ES-05-02-07 1759EDT