PEORIA, Ariz. — Yovani Gallardo allowed three-run homers to Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager, and the Seattle Mariners beat the Texas Rangers 8-0 Sunday.
Seager took off Saturday because of tightness in his side. He connected in the first.
“It was a precautionary thing,” Seager said of sitting out a day. “It was just one of those things where spring training, kind of don’t want to overdo it and hurt yourself when you don’t need to, I guess.”
He was confused at first as to whether the ball reached the berm over the fence in left-center field.
“It was kind of nice,” Seager said. “It felt clean, so that was good.”
Cruz, a former Ranger who entered the game with two regular-season home runs off Gallardo in his career, hit a drive off the center field batter’s eye in the third. He had two hits.
“That was special,” Seager said. “That’s probably one of the hardest balls, definitely the hardest ball I’ve seen hit this spring.”
Gallardo allowed eight runs on seven hits in 4 2-3 innings, the second time he’s yielded four runs or more runs in a spring training outing. He struck out two and walked four.
“He threw some nice pitches down in the zone. He just got a few pitches up that got hit,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “No concerns whatsoever. He made three bad pitches.”
James Paxton made his spring training debut after being slowed by forearm stiffness. The Mariners left-hander, slated for the starting rotation, worked 3 1-3 innings. He gave up five hits with two strikeouts, a walk and a wild pitch.
“That was good to get in situations there,” Paxton said, “and make some pitches when I had to get out of it.”
Logan Morrison and Dustin Ackley had run-scoring doubles for the Mariners in the fifth.
Former Mariner Carlos Peguero raised his spring average to .440 with a 3 for 4 afternoon for Texas.
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