SEATTLE — Left, right. Shift, no shift. Breaking ball, fastball. Home, road.
Doesn’t seem to matter who or what Jarred Kelenic is facing right now. He’s mashing everything.
Kelenic continued his incredible turnaround in the Mariners’ return home, belting a towering two-run home run in the first at-bat of his first start against a left-handed pitcher and lifting the Mariners to a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night at T-Mobile Park.
Veteran left-hander Tommy Milone pitched into the fifth inning in an effective fill-in start for Marco Gonzales (who was placed on the paternity list), and Ty France extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a two-run double as the Mariners improved to 6-8 on the young season.
Kelenic hit an 83-mph slider from Colorado lefty Austin Gomber 414 feet to straightaway center field to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead in the second inning.
He has now homered in four consecutive games, the first Seattle player to do so since Tom Murphy in August 2019 and the first 23-or-younger Seattle player to do so since Ken Griffey Jr. in July 1993 (when he homered in eight straight games to tie the MLB record).
In his next at-bat, Kelenic ripped an 89-mph fastball that Gomber left over the middle of the plate down the right-field line for a double, his eighth extra-base hit in his last eight games.
As hot as Kelenic’s bat has been, manager Scott Servais wasn’t going to take him out of the lineup — even with a left-handed starter looming Friday. The Mariners had been using a left-field platoon with Kelenic and veteran AJ Pollock for the first two weeks of the season.
Before Friday, Kelenic had just three plate appearances against lefties this season (all against relief pitchers), and he was 0 for 3.
In 205 career plate appearances against lefties, Kelenic had a .154 batting average with 62 strikeouts and a .464 OPS. Against righties, he has a career .712 OPS in 394 plate appearances.
“I’m excited to see this thing continue to grow and move forward,” Servais said before Friday’s series opener. “He’s made some big-time adjustments. He’s very comfortable. He looks good at the plate … and certainly the ball is jumping off his bat right now.
“He needs to continue to roll like that. It really helps the length of our lineup. He can do some serious damage when he’s right, and he’s right right now.”
Julio Rodriguez doubled to drive in Kelenic in the fourth inning, and France followed with his two-run double off the top of the wall in center field — a 400-foot shot — to extend the Mariners’ lead to 5-1.
Milone allowed only one run in 4 2/3 innings in his first MLB start in two years.
Mariners reliever Trevor Gott was charged with two runs in the sixth inning, one scoring on Matt Brash’s bases-loaded walk to Ezequiel Tovar, the Rockies’ No. 9 hitter, on a 3-2 slider.
Brash then struck out the next batter, Jurickson Profar, on three pitches to strand the bases loaded.
Justin Topa and Gabe Speier followed with scoreless innings of relief, and Paul Sewald retired the side in order in the ninth for his third save of the season.
