SEATTLE — After a frustrating Saturday evening where they felt helpless and humbled to the breaks of baseball, seeing hard-hit ball after hard-hit ball get turned into outs and defensive highlights on stellar plays made by the Oakland A’s in an eventual loss, the Mariners made a major adjustment to their offensive plan for Sunday’s series finale.
They hit the ball where the A’s couldn’t make a defensive play — over the fence.
The Mariners smashed three homers and gave the crowd of 41,608, already basking in the afternoon sun, plenty to celebrate on Mother’s Day with an easy 8-4 victory over the A’s.
After having their streak of series wins end on the prior road trip, the Mariners (22-19) began the process of starting a new streak, taking two of three over the their AL West foes. Seattle will open a three-game series vs. the vastly improved Kansas City Royals (25-17), Monday at T-Mobile Park.
“It’s nice to get back on the series-win train again,” manager Scott Servais said. “We were on a good roll and stubbed our toe in Minnesota a little bit. So nice job by the guys getting it back going. I knew coming into this series, it was not going to be easy. I know we’ve played very well against Oakland the last few years, but their club is much improved.”
The Mariners got a solid if not completely efficient outing from Luis Castillo, who improved to 4-5 on the season. Castillo needed 100 pitches to work six innings, allowing two runs on seven hits with no walks and eight strikeouts. His two runs allowed came on solo homers when the Mariners had a comfortable lead.
“It starts with our starter,” Servais said. “Rock was really good out there today. He wasn’t ahead in the count as much as we’re used to seeing. He was bothered by that. But he was able to make pitches to get through it. It was exactly what we needed and our offense showed up today.”
Indeed, for the second time in the series, the Mariners scored eight runs, more than double their average runs per game this season.
“It’s tough when you are lining out or hitting the ball hard and they’re catching it or making great plays, but it’s the game,” said designated hitter Mitch Garver. “You just keep showing up, keep putting in work and trying to get better.”
The Mariners made A’s starter Alex Wood work from his first pitch of the game, refusing to give in and swing at his pitches on the fringes of the strike zone. Dylan Moore’s leadoff single came after he worked a 3-1 count. With two outs, Mitch Garver got down 0-2, worked the count to full and ripped a single to left to score Moore and give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. Wood needed 29 pitches to get through the first inning.
The Mariners broke the game open in the second, getting a little help from the A’s defense, which was so good the night before. The issues started when shortstop Max Schuemann booted Ty France’s routine ground ball to start the inning. Luis Urias followed with a walk and the Mariners had backup catcher Seby Zavala move the runners into scoring position with their first successful sacrifice bunt of the season.
Sam Haggerty made the strategy pay off, sending a line drive just past Schuemann for an RBI single. Dylan Moore drove in another run with a deep sac fly to center to make it 3-0.
“With his stuff and it’s the deceptive delivery that he has and he likes to pitch on the edges, you do need to be patient trying to get the ball in the middle,” Servais said of Wood. “And we executed today. We got guys on, we moved them over and we got them in. That’s what it takes.”
And they started getting balls over the plate.
Rodriguez stepped to the plate with a runner on base. He fell behind 0-2 on three pitches, but wouldn’t chase a slider out of the zone. Wood came back with a sinker that Rodriguez hammered over the wall in center for his second homer of the season and a 5-0 lead.
“I feel like top to bottom of the lineup that we are a really good team and a really well-rounded team,” Rodriguez said. “Whenever we’re swinging at the right pitch and putting the ball in play, we’re a really dangerous team that can play against anybody.”
When Wood got Mitch Haniger to fly out to deep center for the final out of the inning, he’d thrown 31 pitches in the frame and the Mariners had scored four unearned runs. Wood didn’t return for the third inning.
But Seattle continued to add runs against the A’s bullpen. After Castillo served up a solo homer in the fifth inning to Schuemann, Garver answered with a two-run blast into The ‘Pen to make it 7-1.
“I just missed a couple heaters off in the last at-bat,” Garver said. “But I was happy with the swings that I got off on. So I felt pretty confident I was gonna get another heater at some point and just stay committed to the plan.”
After Castillo gave up a solo homer to old friend Abraham Toro, Zavala got the run back with his first homer of the season — a fly ball over the wall in left field.
“A lot of things are coming together offensively in this series,” Servais said. “We had a couple of really good games. Even last night, I thought we swung the bat very well. We just didn’t get the results we were hoping for. We got another big series ahead. The Royals are playing very well. They, again, are another much improved team.”
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