Anchia hits go-ahead homer in 8th, M’s hold off Guardians

By Ryan Divish / The Seattle Times

Mariners 9, Guardians 8 at Peoria Stadium

PEORIA, Ariz. — It might not have felt like the pitch clock made a difference in the 2 hour and 54-minute affair on a blustery Tuesday afternoon. But then again it’s fair to wonder how long the Seattle Mariners’ second victory of the spring might have taken without it — probably 3 ½ hours.

The two teams combined for 17 runs on 21 hits while using 15 total pitchers, who walked 13 batters and hit two.

Mariners catching prospect Jake Anchia broke an 8-8 tie in the eighth inning, launching a solo homer on to the berm in right-center field to give Seattle a lead. Right-hander Riley O’Brien, a Shorewood and Everett Community College standout, shook off a pair of infield hits to pick up the save. He’s gotten the save in both of Seattle’s wins this season.

Powered by a pair of four-run innings to start the game — highlighted by back-to-back homers from Teoscar Hernandez and Ty France in the second inning — the Marines led 8-1 after two innings and 8-2 going into the sixth inning.

However, the Guardians scored six runs in the top of the sixth with four of them charged to veteran reliever Trevor Gott, who failed to finish the inning. He gave up a one-out RBI single to Juan Brito and a two-out RBI single to Connor Kokx. After issuing his second walk of the inning, he was lifted for minor league call-up Collin Kober, who immediately walked the first batter he faced and gave up deep fly ball to center that Jonathan Clase couldn’t glove. It went for a three-run double with two runs charged to Gott.

Seattle got two scoreless innings of work from top pitching prospect Bryce Miller.

Player of the game

After being scratched from the lineup on Sunday with lower back tightness, Hernandez returned to the lineup and made his presence felt immediately. In his second at-bat of the game, Hernandez crushed a 2-1 fastball from Cleveland starter Logan Allen. With a little help from the wind, the ball rocketed over the batter’s eye in center and completely out of the stadium.

“He’s got some kind of power,” manager Scott Servais said. “Guys were talking about, ‘you just gotta get it in the air today,’ but that ball is a home run any day and anywhere. It’s nice to see him get his timing going.”

Quotable

“It is frustrating. We need to do a better job of controlling counts and getting in to good counts. We haven’t done that. We walked a bunch of guys yesterday and again today. It’s spring training and we’ve got things to work on, that’s for sure.” — Servais

On tap

The Mariners travel to Sloane Park in Mesa to face the Chicago Cubs. Left-hander Robbie Ray will make his second start of the spring. Also scheduled to pitch are right-handers Emerson Hancock, Matt Brash, Matt Festa, Chris Clarke, J.B. Bukauskas and lefty Tommy Milone. Chicago will start right-hander Hayden Wesneski. Also scheduled to pitch for the Cubs is former Mariner Roenis Elias. First pitch is set for 12:05 p.m. PT. The game will be televised on MLB.TV via Marquee Sports Network. The game will have live radio broadcast on mariners.com. Seattle Sports 710 will carry the game on delay later in the evening.