Through Wednesday, Mariners second baseman Robinson Cano led the American League with eight home runs and 24 RBI. No other AL player had more than 19 RBI.
“I’m not trying (to hit home runs),” Cano said, “but it’s good. It’s always good to start the season good. It helps the team win games.
“You look back to my first season (with the Mariners, 2014), we weren’t winning series in the first month, and we ended up not making (the postseason) by one game. The first month of the season means a lot.
“You go into May, and you’re in the fight. When you start the season like we did last year, it’s hard to bounce back and be in the race.”
Cano’s career highs in homers and RBI came with the New York Yankees: 33 homers in 2012, and 118 RBI in 2011.
Minor awards
Triple-A Tacoma lefty James Paxton was picked as the Canadian Baseball Network’s player of the week after winning two starts and giving up only one unearned run over 111/3 innings.
The CBN makes its weekly selection from the 58 Canadian-born players in the minor leagues or playing in foreign lands.
Minor details
Lo-A Clinton first baseman Dalton Kelly is on a 16-for-33 surge over his past eight games, which has boosted his average to .381 with a .451 on-base percentage and a .493 slugging percentage.
The Mariners selected Kelly, 21, in the 38th round of last year’s draft after he played three seasons at California-Santa Barbara.
Looking back
It was 30 years ago Friday — April 29, 1986 — that Boston right-hander Roger Clemens set a major-league record for a nine-inning game by striking out 20 Mariners in a 3-1 victory at Fenway Park.
Phil Bradley struck out four times, including No. 20 for the second out in the ninth inning. Twenty strikeouts remains a record for a nine-inning game, although it has now been done four times.
Clemens matched his record 10 years later while pitching for Boston at Detroit. Kerry Wood struck out 20 for the Chicago Cubs in a 1998 victory over Houston, and Randy Johnson had 20 strikeouts for Arizona in 2001 against Cincinnati.
The record for strikeouts in a game is 21 by Tom Cheney of the Washington Senators on Sept. 12, 1962. Cheney pitched 16 innings in a 2-1 victory at Baltimore.
Short hops
Wednesday’s 7-4 loss to the Astros marked the Mariners’ first loss of the season when they scored at least four runs. They are 8-1 when they do so. … First baseman Adam Lind is batting .324 (14-for-41) in 12 games since April 13 after a 1-for-17 start in his first six games. … The Mariners have hit at least one homer in seven straight games. Through Wednesday, they led the American League with 29 HRs. … The Mariners’ bullpen, through Wednesday, ranked fourth among AL clubs with a 2.59 ERA. That was one slot ahead of Kansas City’s vaunted reliever corps at 2.62. The Chicago White Sox led the league at 1.32.
A reminder
Saturday’s game, originally scheduled for 6:10 p.m., will start at 7:10 p.m. The Mariners made the switch because of access concerns resulting from the Seattle Sounders’ afternoon game and the closing of the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
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