Julio Rodriguez-led Mariners come back big in late going, knock off Twins
MINNEAPOLIS — For the better part of seven innings, the Mariners seemed destined to drop their second straight game to start this trip that leads into the looming Major League Baseball trade deadline on Aug. 1.
Would it be another lackluster loss that moved management just a little closer to being a seller instead of a buyer, er, bargain buyer at the deadline?
Less than 24 hours earlier, they somehow found themselves leading in the bottom of the ninth after trailing the entire game, thanks to an unlikely pinch-hit homer from Kolten Wong. How did they treat such good fortune? They lost anyway.
On a sweltering Tuesday evening at Target Field where shirt backs turned damp from simply sitting and the air felt like warm broth, the Mariners somehow made another stunning comeback late in the game — only this time they made it stand up in a 9-7 victory.
“Just how we drew it up,” joked Mariners manager Scott Servais.
Down 6-2 going into the eighth inning, the Mariners scored four runs off the Twins bullpen, including Julio Rodriguez’s second homer of the game — a two-run shot to right field off former Mariner Emilio Pagan that tied the game at 6.
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Of his 16 homers this season, it was just the fifth homer to right field and the first since May 26.
“We haven’t seen that in a long, long time,” Servais said. “He’s got that kind of power. He’s a special, special player.”
It’s something Rodriguez has tried to find in this year of living up to expectations, including his own.
“There has definitely been a lot of work on just kind of being me as a hitter,” he said. “I like being able to drive the ball all throughout the field and not just trying to pull it somewhere. I just kind of let the ball go wherever it wants to go.”
In the ninth inning facing right-hander Oliver Ortega, Seattle loaded the bases with no outs. Rookie Cade Marlowe worked a leadoff walk and stole second. Kolten Wong dropped down a perfect bunt intended to be a sacrifice that instead went for a single. J.P. Crawford was hit by a pitch to load the bases.
Eugenio Suarez put the Mariners ahead for good, doubling down the third-base line to score a pair of runs, and Teoscar Hernandez added a sac fly for some insurance.
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“We have Cade steal, and it sets up the bunt and Kolten executes it perfectly,” Servais said. “Now all of a sudden, the inning starts to unravel for them.”
Despite his heavy usage, Paul Sewald picked up his 20th save, allowing a solo homer in the ninth.
“Paul has been used a lot lately and it’s one of those situations before the game you ask him if we have a chance to win it to close out the game,” Servais said. “He wants to take the ball, so I appreciate that.”
Per ESPN Stats & Info, the Mariners had lost 580 straight road games when trailing by four runs or more in the eighth inning or later. The last time they’d won a game under those circumstances was on Sept. 27, 1991, against the White Sox in the first year of the new Comiskey Park. The Mariners trailed 8-4 going into the ninth inning and tied the game and then went ahead on a two-run homer from Ken Griffey Jr. in the 11th.
“Not too many times you come back from down four on the road like that and it’s been 30 some years since the Mariners have done it,” Servais said, referencing the stat. “But we needed it, and our guys don’t quit.”
Instead of trying to avoid a sweep on Wednesday afternoon in even warmer temperatures, the Mariners will go for a series win with Bryce Miller getting the start.
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“We’ll see what happens tomorrow,” Servais said. “We’re gonna get after it and hopefully win this series.”
Five days ago, on a slightly more comfortable afternoon at T-Mobile Park, George Kirby carved up the Twins in what would be one of his best starts of the season. He set the tone, pitching seven scoreless innings, allowing four hits with no walks and 10 strikeouts in Seattle’s 5-0 victory.
Facing the American League Central leaders for a second straight turn in Seattle’s rotation, Kirby couldn’t replicate that dominance.
In a weird outing in which his pitches either seemed to get turned into base hits or were swung at and missed, Kirby gave up four runs in the first inning and a total of five in a shorter-than-expected outing.
“George Kirby has been so good for us,” Servais said. “We’ve jumped on his back in so many games. Tonight, they jumped on him. They’d just seen him recently and he made a couple of mistakes early in the game.”
Kirby’s final line: four innings, five runs allowed on seven hits with a walk and nine strikeouts.
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It got even more odd. Of his first 16 batters he faced, Twins hitters either reached base or struck out. Kirby gave up seven hits, walked Carlos Correa and struck out eight. With two outs in the third inning, Ryan Jeffers lifted a soft liner to shallow right field that was caught by Wong to break that run.
“Weird,” Kirby said. “I got nothing to say to it. They jumped a couple for a couple of runs. Besides that, it was nothing.”
At 89 pitches, Kirby was willing to go out for the fifth inning. But Servais opted to go to his bullpen.
“He hung in there just to get through four innings, and he was willing to take the ball to go out there in the fifth,” Servais said. “We just thought that he really hasn’t had a (break). He pitched in the All-Star Game and it’s been constant since then.”
Seattle hadn’t done much against Twins starter Pablo Lopez. Their only runs against him came on solo homers. Moved down to the fifth spot in the order, Rodriguez crushed a pitch into the upper deck in left field in the second inning. Seattle’s second run off Lopez came on Marlowe’s first MLB homer — an opposite-field blast to left-center in the fifth inning.
The Mariners used Gabe Speier, Isaiah Campbell and Tayler Saucedo to cover the fifth, sixth and seventh innings.
Matt Brash worked a dominant eighth inning after the Mariners had tied the game.
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Source: The Seattle Times
