Associated Press
SEATTLE — Before speaking to reporters after a 3-1 victory over the Twins, Seattle manager Scott Servais sat down, smiled and turned his cap slightly to the side. Just a little sign of the respect for the fashion style of his new reliever Alex Colome, who pitched a perfect ninth to earn a save in his first day as a Mariner.
“Colome is a serious dude,” Servais said. “He’s all business.”
Colome arrived in Seattle on Saturday night, a day after the Mariners got him and outfielder Denard Span in a trade with Tampa Bay.
Ryon Healy doubled home two runs in the eighth inning, then Colome made his Seattle debut with a three-up, three-down ninth.
“Different team, same baseball,” Colome said after earning his 12th save of the season. “It was great to get the opportunity. We’re going to win a lot more games here.”
Colome will pitch the eighth inning most of the time for Seattle, but closer Edwin Diaz had the day off after working in four of the previous five games.
“I don’t have any problem with that,” Colome said. “I can pitch anywhere. I just want to try to help the team.”
The Mariners swept the three-game series and have won eight of their last nine.
“What’s been amazing about this whole thing is how good our pitching has been,” said Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager, who homered in the fourth. “There’s a different confidence level with this group of guys. It’s been a lot of fun to be part of.”
Seager also was outstanding in the field with several stellar plays at third, including a stop that robbed Brian Dozier of a likely double in the sixth.
“He’s got gold on his glove for a reason,” Dozier said. “He’s really good. I was laughing about it afterward. He’s done that multiple times to me in the past. That could’ve been a big inning.”
Mike Leake (5-3) allowed only one run in eight innings for the win. He outpitched Jose Berrios (5-5), who gave up two runs in 7 1/3 innings.
“We just aren’t supporting our pitching particularly well,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said. “You can talk about matchups late in the game and all those type of things, but the reality is we played 30 innings (in the series) and I don’t know how many hits we ended up with, maybe 15. Just not a lot of opportunities, and when we do get them we just can’t seem to get a hit, at least not very frequently.”
Leake also was working with a new catcher in Chris Herrmann, who was called up from Triple-A Tacoma before the game.
“We knew each other for 15 minutes before (the game),” Leake said. “He has a really good feel back there. He helped out a lot with me keeping guys off-balance today.”
Healy’s tiebreaking, two-run double came off Addison Reed, the Twins’ fourth pitcher of the inning. Healy had three hits.
“Our pitching staff has been unbelievable and we gotten just enough hits to back them up,” Healy said.
The Twins took a 1-0 lead in the second when Eddie Rosario singled and scored on a double by Eduardo Escobar.
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