Mariners turn on small-ball magic to rally for rousing victory over Nationals
Ruled out, initially, Jarred Kelenic took off his helmet, then his batting gloves and sat on his rear end on the infield dirt, leaning back on his hands, his right leg stretched out over second base.
He must’ve sat there for two minutes after Mariners manager Scott Servais challenged the ruling on the stolen-base attempt.
Finally, the announcement from umpire Mark Carlson: Call overturned, runner is safe.
Kelenic, still sitting, leaned his head back, looked at the sky and smiled. The ballpark deejay quickly queued up John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Kelenic’s new walk-up song and, suddenly, a singalong favorite for everyone at T-Mobile Park these days.
On the next pitch, Mike Ford singled on a ground ball up the middle and Kelenic sprinted home, scoring easily during the Mariners’ breakthrough fifth inning en route to a rousing, 8-4 come-from-behind victory over the Washington Nationals on Monday night.
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” blared throughout the ballpark after Paul Sewald secured the save. The song is catching on, just as Kelenic had hoped when he made it his new walk-up song a few weeks ago.
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“People are loving it, you know?” Kelenic said afterward. “When the crowd gets into it, man, I just feel like as a team we just feed off of that. And I think it’s sick.”
The Mariners’ new “selfless” approach at the plate is starting to catch on, too.
J.P. Crawford and Eugenio Suarez hit solo home runs, and the Mariners (38-39) then turned to a small-ball style to erase an early two-run deficit.
“We’ve talked a little bit about where we’re at in the season and what we need to do to put a good streak together,” Servais said. “And it’s no coincidence when you’re selfless like that and you give yourself up for the team and all of a sudden instead of just getting one run, we ended up with three runs that [fifth] inning because we’re doing the right things and executing there.”
Kelenic singled in the fourth inning and advanced to second when Nationals starter Trevor Williams was called for a balk on a three-disengagements rule, the first time the Mariners have benefited from that new rule this season.
Julio Rodriguez then singled for the third time, driving in Kelenic from second to tie the score 3-3.
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In the fifth, Teoscar Hernandez singled off the foot of Nationals reliever Cory Abbott and moved to second on an unusual throwing error by first baseman Dominic Smith.
Hernandez moved to third on a Cal Raleigh ground out and then scored the go-ahead run on Suarez’s deep sacrifice fly to the right-field corner.
Raleigh went hitless Monday, but Servais pointed to his at-bat in the fifth as perhaps the most crucial in the game. Raleigh, after falling behind 1-2 in the count, was able to poke a ground ball up the middle, allowing Hernandez to move to third with one out.
All part, again, of the selfless approach Servais has been preaching often during the past couple of weeks.
“Really good offensive night, obviously,” Servais said. “We did a lot of really good things.”
With two outs, Kelenic drew a four-pitch walk and then stole second — an out call overturned after the review — when he deftly slid around the tag attempt from shortstop CJ Abrams.
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Ford followed with the RBI single, and Kolten Wong added a double off the top of the wall in right-center, scoring Ford from first to make it 6-3.
Ty France singled to drive in Crawford in the eighth, and Hernandez followed with a sac fly to score Rodriguez to make it 8-3.
The Mariners, who arrived home Sunday night after a 2-4 East Coast road swing through New York and Baltimore, are looking to take advantage of a young and rebuilding Nationals squad (30-47), which has the fewest wins in the National League.
The Mariners finished with 12 hits and were able to chase Williams after just four innings.
“We’re approaching the midway [point of] the season, but I think there’s no better time to start picking it up [than] right now,” Kelenic said. “The path that we’re on right now, we’re having great at-bats, our swing decisions are great. That’s all you can ask for. And now all we need is just a little bit of luck to really get us going. And I think we’re getting there.”
Things didn’t start out so well for Mariners ace Luis Castillo, who gave up a leadoff homer to Lane Thomas just three pitches in.
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Castillo wasn’t particularly sharp early, allowing a run in each of the first three innings.
He settled down after that to throw seven solid innings, allowing two earned runs, scattering seven hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts. He had lost his last four starts.
“I had that streak … it wasn’t the best these past few outings for me,” Castillo said through interpreter Fredd Llanos. “But it was important for me to go get that seventh [inning], and thank God that we were able to come up with that one.”
Crawford answered with a leadoff homer for the Mariners in the bottom of the first, his second leadoff homer this season and sixth overall.
It was the first time since 2013 that the Mariners have played in a game in which both teams hit a leadoff homer (Brad Miller for the Mariners and Ben Zobrist for the Rays in Tampa Bay) — and the first time that’s happened in a game played in Seattle.
Suarez homered off Williams to lead off the fourth inning, cutting the Mariners’ deficit to 3-2.
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It was Suarez’s eighth home run of the season, and he leads the team with 46 RBI.
The Nationals scored one run in the ninth off Tayler Saucedo. With the bases loaded and two outs, Servais called on Sewald to face Jeimer Candelario, the Nationals’ No. 3 hitter.
Sewald struck him out looking at a 1-2 slider off the plate away for the final out. It was Sewald’s 14th save.
Source: The Seattle Times
