SEATTLE — For the first four innings, the Mariners seemed destined to take a step back in their never-ending dance between a winning record and a losing record — call it the mambo of mediocrity.
Their starter, Logan Gilbert, was using far too many pitches to get outs, with no hope of making it past the fifth inning.
Meanwhile, they were verifying the All-Star selection of Twins starter Sonny Gray, who cruised through the first four innings, holding the Mariners scoreless, allowing two hits and striking out five batters. Using his wide assortment of pitches — none of them straight — Gray had Seattle hitters off balance, uncomfortable and away from their game plan.
Would it be another night of Mariners manager Scott Servais lamenting an offense that simply cannot find any sort of consistency with its approach and production?
Not on this particularly cool and breezy Monday evening.
With every hitter in the lineup seeing Gray at least once, the Mariners started to force him back into the strike zone, refusing to help him out with wild swings at pitches out of the zone.
The result of that change: base runners, hits and runs, including four off Gray in the fifth and another in the sixth.
But an easy win?
Well, that wasn’t quite so simple even after Eugenio Suarez hit a two-run homer in the seventh inning.
A drama-free ninth inning turned tense with two outs when rookie reliever Ty Adcock gave up a three-run homer to Max Kepler, turning a comfortable four-run lead into only one.
But Paul Sewald came in to strike out Ryan Jeffers and secure Seattle’s 7-6 victory.
With the win, the Mariners improved to 47-46 on the season.
“I thought the quality of our at-bats got better as the game went on,” Servais said. “It didn’t start off so good and Sonny Gray is really good. But after we made a few adjustments, understanding that you’re not going to hit the long ball off Sonny Gray. You’ve got to take your singles, work your walks. And we were able to do that and put a big inning together.”
As Gray carved up hitters early in the game, Servais’ irritation was growing.
“It’s one thing to come up with an approach on how we’re going to attack a guy and it’s easy to talk about at five o’clock,” he said. “It’s a lot harder to go out and execute and stay with it. And early in the game, we didn’t stay with the approach. Sometimes, you have to remind them. It’s part of coaching.”
In the fifth, Teoscar Hernandez doubled with one out to start the rally. Ty France took a walk and Mike Ford, with the help of a replay review challenge, was hit on his foot by a pitch to load the bases.
While the operating theory/complaint among the fan base is that the Mariners are awful with the bases loaded and never score, it isn’t true based on season stats. They came into the game with a .344/.375/.563 slash line with the bases loaded; the batting average is the second highest in MLB.
The Mariners improved on those numbers. Jose Caballero singled through the left side to score Seattle’s first run of the game. After J.P. Crawford popped up to shortstop, Julio Rodriguez stepped into the prime run-scoring situation.
Would he hit his second career grand slam? Well, his swing on a first-pitch fastball down the middle had the intent. But he fouled it straight back. Gray tried to strike out Rodriguez with sweeping sliders, but he couldn’t get him to chase — something that has been a problem for Rodriguez all season. He was able to lay off a 94-mph fastball above the zone for a run-scoring walk that tied the game at 2-2.
The Mariners took the lead for good when Jarred Kelenic dumped a soft single into left field that scored a pair of runs.
“I was trying to stay middle to the other way,” Kelenic said. “I wasn’t trying to hit a grand slam there. It wasn’t necessary. I was just trying to put the ball in play. It wasn’t crushed, by any means, but it got the job done.”
The Mariners picked up a fifth run off Gray in the sixth when Cal Raleigh drew a leadoff walk off and later scored on a wild pitch on ball four to Ford with two outs.
It ended Gray’s outing. His final line: 5 2/3 innings, five runs allowed on five hits with four walks and five strikeouts.
The Mariners could see how visibly frustrated Gray was getting in those last two innings.
“For sure, and we just got more patient, and we knew exactly what we were looking for,” Kelenic said.
Seattle got a short — and pitched-filled — start from Gilbert in his first start of the second half. The right-hander lasted only five innings, allowing two runs on seven hits with a walk and five strikeouts but still picked up the win to improve to 8-5.
“He’s sitting close to 70 pitches after three innings and I had a conversation with him and I said, ‘I need five, so you better get your fastball back in play,'” Servais said. “And he did. And he got some easy outs with his fastball after that without having his best fastball. His first three innings weren’t very easy, but he got us through the fifth, which allowed us to win the game.”
The Twins picked up both runs off him in a 28-pitch third inning. Michael A. Taylor led off with a double and scored on Carlos Correa’s double into right field. After allowing a soft single to Edouard Julien that put runners on the corners with no outs, Gilbert came back to strike out Byron Buxton and allowed a sacrifice fly to right field from Alex Kirilloff for the second run of the inning.
When Gilbert gave up a leadoff double to Kepler to start the fourth inning, Servais had Adcock start warming in the bullpen.
Gilbert wouldn’t need the relief. He retired the next three hitters on a pop-ups. He managed to work a scoreless fifth despite allowing a one-out single to Julien, who had three hits off him, and a two-out single to Kirilloff. The inning ended with second baseman Caballero making a nice running stop and firing off balance to first baseman France, who made an equally impressive play, gloving the wayward throw, stretching as far as he could while keeping his foot on the base.
“We talked about going to the fastball a little more as the game progressed,” Gilbert said. “Probably got away from that a little bit. It was just long at-bats and foul balls. I felt a little out of sync like not making pitches consistently. Sometimes, I’d make a good pitch. Sometimes, one would get away from me a little bit.”
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