Pujols has last word with decisive blow

SEATTLE — Albert Pujols swung so hard he almost lost his balance on the follow-through. Steve Cishek’s ninth-inning sinker had tailed back out over the heart of the plate and Pujols had unleashed his mightiest hack, sending the baseball soaring just above the small scoreboard that sits beyond the left-field fence and vaulting his Angels to a 9-7 victory on Saturday night.

Pujols, the high-priced slugger who has spent the first six weeks begging for hits to fall in, walked a couple of steps in admiration, tossed his bat aside with his left hand and proceeded his trot around the bases. Cishek, the Mariners closer who was only 24 hours removed from his second blown save, remained on one knee and stared off toward center field.

Safeco Field, stuffed with 42,038 fans who were buzzing all night, fell silent.

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“It’s awesome,” Angels reliever Joe Smith said. “That’s why you play, right? It’s fun. Everybody loves the cheers and stuff, but sometimes that silence is even better.”

The Angels’ bullpen, gassed from a 14-game stretch in which it absorbed a Major League-high 58 1/3 innings, had just blown a four-run lead by allowing five runs in the bottom of the eighth. But with one out in the top of the ninth, Kole Calhoun was …

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