ARLINGTON, Texas — The best way to make people forget about a costly throwing error that was a main reason your team was headed for another costly defeat is to smash the go-ahead homer in the bottom ninth to rally your team for a victory.
With the Mariners trailing by a run and seemingly headed toward another road loss, Eugenio Suarez, who helped put his team in that situation with a costly throwing error in the sixth inning, redeemed his mistake, smashing a two-run homer to right field in the top of the ninth inning to turn a one-run deficit into an eventual 4-3 victory over the Rangers.
Suarez’s heroics wouldn’t be finalized until the Mariners’ overworked bullpen, specifically Paul Sewald, closed out the game with a scoreless ninth inning.
The veteran right-hander retired the side in order, notching his third save of the season and giving the Mariners back-to-back road wins for the first time since April 8-9 in Minnesota — the first two games of the season.
The Mariners’ victory hopes seemed bleak when reliever Roenis Elias was called on to work the seventh inning and served up a solo homer to Nathaniel Lowe on his first pitch.
Down 3-2 going into the ninth, J.P. Crawford worked a leadoff walk off Joe Barlow to bring Suarez to the plate as the go-ahead run. The veteran slugger got ahead 2-0 in the count and unleased on a 96-mph fastball that sat in the middle of the plate, sending a deep flyball into right field. MLB Statcast measured the blast at 393 feet.
Though he couldn’t replicate the seven shutout innings of his previous start, Logan Gilbert gave the Mariners a solid outing that shouldn’t have required Suarez’s late-inning heroics. Gilbert held the Rangers scoreless through the first five innings. He started the sixth inning with a 2-0 lead, compliments of a sac fly from Suarez in the fourth inning and Cal Raleigh’s mammoth solo homer to right in the fifth inning.
Gilbert got Marcus Semien to hit a routine ground ball to third to start the sixth inning. But Suarez airmailed his throw to first base. Semien later stole second and scored off Corey Seager’s double to right field. Kole Calhoun would tie the game two batters later with a double off the wall in left field.
