Drought over. Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager spark Mariners power surge to avoid sweep
Whatever offense the Seattle Mariners have produced over the past month-plus entering Sunday’s game, most of it had been forged by that boomstick of a bat one 38-year-old named Nelson Cruz lumbers around.
The Mariners had struggled putting runners, on base, scoring them, hitting the ball hard, hitting the ball in the right places or just hitting it at all this past month.
So that Cruz-Kyle Seager jump hug near the on-deck circle, as is customary when Cruz homers, meant just a little more in the seventh inning after Cruz’s boomstick broke, but still had enough to carry over the center field wall for a go-ahead two-run home run.
“I think the hug was because he hit a broken-bat home run – that was pretty cool,” Seager laughed.
Seager decided to follow with his second home run of the game.
Cruz and Seager carried on Sunday, combining for three homers and all the Mariners runs in a 6-3 victory to stave off a potential four-game sweep against the Toronto Blue Jays, which felt more like an away series with the packed Blue Jays fanbase.
Offense? Home runs? Mariners?
Who knew?
The Mariners (64-48) ended their five-game losing streak and avoided being swept in a four-game series for the first time since hosting the Angels from Aug. 10-13 last season.
The Mariners remain 2.5 games behind the Athletics (67-46) and 6.5 games behind the American League West-leading Astros (71-42).
“We all tried to stay positive,” Cruz said. “We understand that we have to score runs to win games, so that was the most important thing. We just kept it simple – grind at-bats, get walks, get some breaks.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hugs all around.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TrueToTheBlue?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TrueToTheBlue</a> <a href="https://t.co/vmG6NFN8Mf">pic.twitter.com/vmG6NFN8Mf</a></p>— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mariners/status/1026236205854121986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Mariners manager Scott Servais wanted so bad to be able to hand the ball to Alex Colome and Edwin Diaz in the final innings. He finally got his chance. Colome pitched a scoreless eighth inning and Diaz earned his 41st save of the season.
But when Blue Jays shortstop Aledmys Diaz tied the game, 3-3, with a two-run homer off of Mike Leake in the seventh inning, that meant the Mariners needed to score more than three runs for the first time since a week earlier in Anaheim if they planned to avoid further embarrassment against Toronto.
Seattle had scored three or fewer runs in 18 of their previous 23 games.
The bottom of the seventh started with Jean Segura’s single. He entered the game hitting .200 since the All-Star break.
Two batters later, Cruz hit his seventh homer in his past 10 games with a 404-foot broken-bat shot over the center field wall for a 5-3 Mariners lead.
“That was pretty incredible,” Seager said. “I’ve said it before but the stuff he does is incredible. I know I gave one my best bolt to center field and it got caught halfway on the track, and he broke his bat and it went 20 feet farther. It’s incredible the things he can do.”
But Seager had an incredible day, too.
He hit his first home run since July 4 when he launched the first pitch he saw in the sixth inning. He followed with his 18th homer of the season the next inning to follow Cruz for back-to-back dingers.
But for the Mariners’ offense, it wasn’t just about the sudden power surge.
Servais had talked about creating pressure, getting runners on base, making the opposing pitchers and defense more uncomfortable. That’s what was going to get them out of a funk of 3.3 runs per game since July 1.
The Mariners had averaged 4.4 runs in the span before that, built a 53-31 record and were eight games ahead of the Athletics. After Saturday night they were 2.5 games back of the A’s for the second wild card.
But the Mariners got back to what Servais requested on Sunday.
“You got to get the guys on,” Servais said. “We talk about it often, you can’t steal first base. Jean had been in a little dip, hadn’t had much going offensively, but he gets on base and we’re going to be aggressive and take some chances.
“But the ball Nelson hit, this guy is some kind of strong. He broke his bat on the ball but that’s what you get when you have that kind of player.”
It started in the bottom of the third inning when Andrew Romine walked, Denard Span singled and Segura reached on an infield single that was a borderline error on Blue Jays shortstop Aledmys Diaz to load the bases with one out.
Mitch Haniger encapsulated a bit of how the Mariners have been going. He hit a line drive, but it was right in the range of leaping Diaz for a line out.
Except Cruz followed by punching a hard ground ball that just went off the end of Diaz’s glove as he was ranging to his left and two runs scored.
The Blue Jays answered quickly with their first run after Diaz led off with a double and scored on Luke Maile’s single that just got between diving Jean Segura and Andrew Romine up the middle.
But Seager then put a charge into the first pitch he saw from former Mariners right-hander Sam Gaviglio in the bottom of the sixth and launched it over the right field wall for a solo home run – his first since July 4.
“It’s been feeling better,” Seager said. “Even as a team the past couple of days the at-bats had been better. The results hadn’t been there, obviously, but a really good win and our pitching was great.”
Leake pitched 6 2/3 innings and allowed nine hits, three runs no walks with five strikeouts, though the win went to left-hander Zach Duke, his first with the Mariners.
But the homers were the difference. The Mariners needed them.
They entered Sunday’s game ranking only ahead of the Tigers and Giants in the majors in fewest home runs since July. Of their 22 home runs in that span entering the day, the only players with multiple homers were Cruz (seven), Healy (five), Segura (two), and Heredia (two). So it had been a stretch of almost 30 games of hard-contact drought for Seager, Haniger, Zunino and others.
“We had the Seager game today,” Servais said. ‘We had been waiting for that one and Kyle was huge there, so was Nelson Cruz. A lot of guys up and down the lineup were big but we don’t get in that position if Mike Leake doesn’t do his job. Really, really good effort from him.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2018 at 3:48 PM.