Healy drives in five runs as Mariners beat the Rockies 6-4
Published 1:30 am Sunday, July 8, 2018
SEATTLE — Ryon Healy knows it isn’t the right way to think as a baseball player.
His good games — multiple hits or a big homer — are too easily forgotten, while hitless or multi-strikeout games linger in his mind and eat at his insides to the point of being detrimental.
It’s the price one pays for wanting to be perfect — or something close to it.
But Sunday should be a day Healy savors.
The big first baseman jump started Seattle’s flatlining offense, driving in five runs, including a go-ahead three-run homer, and carrying the Mariners to a 6-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies on a sun-drenched Sunday afternoon at Safeco Field.
The win allowed Seattle (57-34) to avoid being swept by a surging Rockies’ team that had won five in a row. The Mariners closed out the nine-game homestand with a 6-3 record. They have Monday off before facing the Angels in Anaheim, California, and then traveling to Denver for a three-game series with the Rockies at Coors Field before the All-Star break.
After his four-hit night in the second game of the homestand, Healy had gone 3-for-23 with a homer and eight strikeouts coming into Sunday, including going hitless in his previous 13 at-bats.
But he changed that quickly in the first inning. With the bases loaded and the Mariners already having scored a run on Kyle Seager’s sacrifice fly to right, Healy smoked a double to left-center off Rockies’ starter Antonio Senzatela for a 3-1 lead.
“It was a big situation there in the first, bases loaded with two outs. It felt great,” Healy said. “It felt like a monkey was lifted off my back.”
Seattle starter Wade LeBlanc (5-0) couldn’t hold that 3-1 lead, giving up a solo homer to Carlos Gonzales in the fifth inning and a two-run blast to Trevor Story in the sixth. LeBlanc also allowed a solo homer to Charlie Blackmon in the first inning.
“All three cases were good hitters,” LeBlanc said. “A couple mistakes, and the one to Story I thought was a good pitch.”
Fortunately for LeBlanc and the Mariners, Healy wasn’t finished.
Facing Senzatela (3-2) for the third time, Healy smashed a three-run homer into the upper deck in left field in the bottom of the inning.
“In the sixth, I had one bad pitch and it cost us,” said Senzatela, who allowed five hits, three walks and all six runs.
The Mariners bullpen made sure the two-run lead held up. James Pazos and Alex Colome worked scoreless innings and Edwin Diaz struck out the side yet again to notch his major league-leading 35th save of the season.
Diaz, who was named to the American League all-star team Sunday, needs three more saves to tie former Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez for most saves prior to the All-Star break.
