By Ryan Divish / The Seattle Times
ARLINGTON, Texas — Everything about the first eight innings Sunday felt familiar and not in a good way. The lack of offense, because of an inability to hit with runners in scoring position, the quality starting pitching ruined by the bullpen and the gloom of another winnable game against a team they should beat being frittered away.
It’s been a common theme for the 2022 Seattle Mariners, particularly in games away from T-Mobile Park, where they’ve lost more than half the games they’ve played.
Down three runs going into the top of the ninth, the Mariners were headed for another costly loss in what has been disappointing start to this season of expectations. Per Fangraphs win probability tracker, they had a 98.6 percent odds of losing that game going into the ninth inning.
Instead, they rallied for three runs in the top of the ninth. Ty France’s solo homer and a two-run double from Eugenio Suarez sent the game into extra innings. After a stellar inning from Diego Castillo, they took the lead in the top of the 10th on a wild pitch and celebrated a stunning 6-5 victory over the Rangers after Paul Sewald worked a scoreless bottom half of the inning for his fourth save.
“Quite a comeback,” manager Scott Servais said. “We’ve had some good ones here through the years. It seems like in this ballpark, we’re always playing crazy games where it gets crazy late in the game. Credit to our guys, no quit. We did not quit today. We certainly could have.”
The Mariners’ fourth win in five extra-inning games meant a series win over the Rangers. The Mariners have won three series in a row, including back-to-back series on the current road trip.
They have the opportunity to turn a good road trip and into an exceptional one over the next three days at Minute Maid Park. If they can somehow win at least one game, yes one, it would mean 5-4 record over the nine-game trip. It may not seem like much, but considering they came into the day with an 11-20 road record and have lost 26 of their past 30 games in Houston, one win will suffice.
Two wins?
Throw a party, hang a banner.
The Mariners got a solid start from rookie George Kirby, who continues to post impressive numbers.
Making his sixth start of the season, Kirby pitched six innings, giving up two runs on five hits with no walks and three strikeouts. The two runs allowed came on solo homers on misplaced sliders.
With two outs in the second inning, Kirby left a slider at the top of the strike zone to Adolis Garcia. It didn’t end well. Garcia jumped on the mistake, sending a rocket deep into the seats in left-center for his 10th homer of the season.
Texas made it 2-0 an inning later when Marcus Semien, a free-agent target of the Mariners last offseason, showed some signs of breaking out of season-long slump. Semien took advantage of a slider from Kirby, sending it into the left field seats for just his third homer of the season.
But after the Semien homer, Kirby retired the next nine batters in a row and allowed just one baserunner over the next 13 batters he faced.
Suarez, who had a monster day at the plate driving in four of the Mariners’ six runs, crushed a solo homer to center off his good friend and fellow Venezuelan countryman Martin Perez, to make it 2-1. It was the first homer that Perez has allowed this season.
In the fifth inning, he dumped a single into left field to score Julio Rodriguez and tie the game at 2-2.
The Mariners bullpen couldn’t hold the lead. With Kirby at 90 pitches, Andres Munoz came on to start the seventh. With one out, he left a 100-mph fastball in the hitting zone of Rangers’ top prospect Ezequiel Duran, who made his MLB debut on Friday. Duran hammered the pitch into the left field seats for his first MLB homer and a 3-2 Rangers lead.
Texas seemed to blow the game open an inning later when Mitch Garver blasted a two-run homer off Sergio Romo that made it 5-2.
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