Another drama-free victory with plenty of offense against the worst team in baseball?
Come on, that’s not the Mariners’ style of baseball. For the last three years, most games are gut-churning, nail-biting affairs that are decided by the slimmest of margins, leaving everyone emotionally drained and ready to imbibe.
But unlike the past two years, when they’d prevailed far more often than not in games decided by one run, the Mariners have struggled this season, losing 12 of the 16 games decided by one run, including losing the past three. Their last victory in a one-run game came in Oakland.
Seattle ended that specific streak Tuesday night. After flirting with a possible loss for four innings, J.P. Crawford and Ty France hit back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead that they eventually turned into a final score.
“Just enough tonight,” manager Scott Servais said. “It’s been awhile since we’ve been on the top end of a one-run win. It’s a nice win. We’re used to playing in a lot of those games, but this year a lot of those haven’t gone our way.”
But did the victory come with a cost?
The sight of France laying face down in the batter’s box after taking a 97-mph fastball off his left wrist from reliever Trevor May in the eighth inning certainly put a damper on the win.
“It is not fractured,” Servais said of the initial X-rays. “Obviously, it’s a contusion right there in the left wrist where he got smoked by the fastball from May. He’s gonna be sore. He’s really day to day. I probably wouldn’t expect him to be able to go tomorrow. Maybe the next day. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
May, who was born in Longview and was a standout at Kelso High, looked ashen on the mound as France was on the ground. The veteran right-handed reliever was reinstated from the injured list before the game. He’d been out since April 19 with issues due to anxiety. It’s something he’s dealt with the past two seasons.
For France, it’s yet another injury to his left wrist. Each of the last two seasons he’s suffered sprains to the wrist while playing defense, both times led to struggles at the plate as he tried to play through them. But the outcome could’ve been far worse.
“That’s a 95-mph fastball up and in like that, and you’re trying to protect yourself a little bit,” Servais said. “Certainly, May didn’t really know where the ball was going. It’s pretty clear. He was spraying it all over the place.”
May hit Eugenio Suarez with a fastball on a 3-2 pitch later in the inning.
“That’s a scary thing,” May told A’s media. “You don’t want to throw it by anyone’s face. I don’t know Ty or Suarez personally. But I’ve played against them quite a bit, and I know they are good dudes. If you are going to hit somebody, you want it to be away from their face. That was my reaction in those two situations. I will reach out and make sure Ty is OK and hope he’s able to play. You don’t want anyone to miss any time because you aren’t very sharp.”
Crawford and France are best friends on the team. It left the Mariners shortstop a little shaken but relieved.
“I tell him to get out of the way every time, and he doesn’t listen to me ever,” Crawford said. “Obviously, it’s not good, but he’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever played with. And the X-rays came back good. He’s a dog. He’s probably going to try to play tomorrow. You can’t keep him off the field so we’ll see what happens.”
After an abysmal outing in Boston in which he didn’t get out of the second inning, Mariners starter Marco Gonzales came back with a much better offering.
Gonzales worked six innings, allowing two runs on five hits with a walk and four strikeouts to improve to 4-1 on the season. The Mariners are now 6-3 in his starts this season.
“I just felt like in Boston that I didn’t give myself a chance to really execute,” Gonzales said. “They just kind of jumped on me right away. So it didn’t really take away from how good I’ve been feeling and how my stuff has been playing. I just tried to reinstate confidence in myself this past week and say, ‘Hey, just flush that one, just go right after them.’ I’ve been feeling too good this year to not have that confidence.”
Both runs came in the first inning.
He allowed a leadoff single to speedy outfielder Esteury Ruiz, who promptly nabbed his MLB-leading 25th stolen base. Ruiz scored on a Ramon Laureano’s single to right field. With two outs, Carlos Perez scored Laureano with a single to left.
“I didn’t think they hit the ball that hard against him, but obviously he gave up a couple there in the first inning and then he settled in,” Servais said. “Then you look up and he gives you a quality start, which is exactly what we needed.”
It was the Mariners’ 26th quality start of the season, tied for most in MLB.
Given how relentless their at-bats were in the series opener and the subsequent offensive production that followed, overcoming a two-run deficit didn’t seem like it would be too much of a problem.
But A’s starter Luis Medina, who displayed plenty of talent, including a fastball up to 98 mph and biting breaking pitches, held the Mariners scoreless and almost hitless for the first five innings.
Julio Rodriguez’s single with two outs in the first inning was the only hit the Mariners registered over the first four innings. Their only other base runners came from walks. Seattle hitters did hit several balls hard — seven balls with exit velocities over 95 mph — that were outs.
But the Mariners broke through in the fifth inning. With two outs, Tom Murphy ripped a double down the left-field line for their second hit of the game.
On a night when the chilly air and swirling winds due to the roof being open had knocked down a few well-struck fly balls, the power-hitter-that-isn’t Crawford tied the game with a two-run homer.
“Big hit by our power-hitter J.P. Crawford,” Servais said.
In a season in which he’s hitting the ball harder than ever before, Crawford pulled a line drive over the wall in right field for his second homer of the season.
“I knew it had a chance,” Crawford said. “I was just trying to square something up and not get out of my plan and damage the pitch. I’m putting my body in a good spot to where I could just fire. I put a lot of work down at DriveLine and it’s paying off right now for sure. I feel confident in the box and I feel like I’m gonna square something up every time.”
The Mariners took the lead six pitches later. A frustrated Medina left a 1-2 curveball over the middle of the plate that France deposited off the electronic out-of-town scoreboard above the Mariners bullpen, breaking one of the panels.
Gonzales and the Mariners bullpen made the lead hold up over the next four innings. Gonzales worked a scoreless sixth while Trevor Gott, Justin Topa and Paul Sewald each provided a scoreless frame to secure the victory. Sewald is now 10-for-10 in save opportunities.
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