SEATTLE — A day earlier, Seattle Mariners shortstop Brendan Ryan lamented the amount of “nail-biters” his team had played this season, particularly in the past week.
“It’d be nice to draw blood first and stomp on their neck and run away with it early,” Ryan
said after Wednesday’s one-run loss.
And after five one-run games in the previous six days, the Mariners put on their stomping boots Thursday, hitting four home runs and scoring all eight runs in the first four innings in an 8-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in front of 16,376 at Safeco Field.
“It’s nice to jump out like that early in a ballgame,” said manager Eric Wedge. “… It’s good for the pitchers and the hitters. We’ve had tight games all year long. You still have a lot of work to do even when you jump out like that, but it was good to be able to separate a little bit early on.”
The Mariners, who have struggled offensively even in victories this season, experienced a rare power surge against Tampa Bay starter James Shields, who came into the game with a 2.15 ERA. After Shields cruised through the first inning, Jack Cust led off the second with a towering home run to right center field, his second of the season and first at Safeco Field. Chone Figgins, back in the lineup after two games off, drove in a run with a single four batters later, then rookie left fielder Carlos Peguero crushed a three-run homer into the right-field bleachers.
Peguero, who came into the game with a .169 batting average, wasn’t finished with Shields after that second-inning blast. The big left-handed hitter led off the fourth with a rocket to left-center field that just cleared the wall, and three batters later Justin Smoak got in on the action with a home run off of Shields. Seattle’s eight runs were the most the team has scored since a 10-1 win over Detroit on April 27.
Peguero’s big game came a day after Wedge talked about wanting to see more production out of the team’s left fielders and see those players making adjustments at the plate.
“He’s strong,” Wedge said. “He has tremendous raw power. The previous game — I know he’s been struggling a little bit — but his at bats were better, they were a little bit more under control, and that’s where he needs to be. He doesn’t need to try to get more. It’s already in there.”
For Peguero, the biggest adjustment to major league pitching has been the increasing number of off-speed pitches he is seeing. On Thursday, he certainly adjusted, hitting a pair of off-speed pitches about 800 combined feet.
“The pitchers throw me a lot of off-speed pitches,” he said. “Just make an adjustment and be patient, sit on it, wait for it and put a good swing on it.”
Seattle’s rare offensive outburst overshadowed an impressive performance by starting pitcher Felix Hernandez. After struggling a bit in his last start, Hernandez was back to his dominant self against the Rays, striking out 11 over seven innings while giving up one run and five hits. In Hernandez’s previous six home starts against Tampa Bay, the Mariners scored a total of nine runs.
“That was good,” he said. “It’s been a while since we got that many runs in one game. It felt good. You can’t get relaxed, you’ve got to make the pitches, (but) it was good.”
Saunders down, Halman up
The Mariners announced after the game that they have recalled outfielder Greg Halman and optioned outfielder Michael Saunders to Class AAA Tacoma. Halman recently came back from a broken wrist and can play all three outfield positions.
Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com.
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