Mariners sweep Rangers behind career day from Moore, solid start from Gonzales
These young Mariners keep winning in September.
They did it again Monday afternoon, closing out this short homestand with an 8-4 victory over the Rangers at T-Mobile Park, completing a four-game sweep.
The Mariners (19-22) have won a season-high six consecutive games, 12 of their past 16, and continue to inch closer to the Astros, who currently hold the coveted second playoff position in the American League West, at 2 1/2 games back with three weeks to play.
“I think you’re seeing a burst of confidence from a large majority of this team that’s finally feeling comfortable, finally feeling like they have a good routine down in the big leagues, and going out there and really searching for wins,” Mariners ace Marco Gonzales said during a postgame video call with reporters. “A team that’s playing together. We’re very, very united. We’re a united group and we have been since Day 1 here, so I’m excited to see what this last stretch of baseball holds for us, because we are playing great baseball right now.”
But, as playoffs are concerned, Gonzales said the Mariners can’t let those thoughts in yet. The focus right now, he said, is whatever tomorrow’s game brings.
“One day at a time,” he said. “And there’ll be a time for looking up at the scoreboard and watching that, but it’s not right now. We’ve got a lot of time left.”
Mariners manager Scott Servais echoed that sentiment. The Mariners remain focused on growing and developing each day as they leave for a five-game road trip in San Francisco and Arizona this week.
“We’re just learning about ourselves every day out there,” Servais said. “Good things, bad things, some things in the middle. How do you make adjustments? We’re going on the road, we’re playing two teams we know very little about. Haven’t seen the Giants at all. We don’t know much about the Diamondbacks. This will be a big big challenge for us.
“When you’re playing teams in your division you get a little bit more rhythm to it, you know how you’re going to attack. This will be a really challenging road trip. We’re looking forward to it. We’re playing really well. This group’s not afraid of anything. We just come to the ballpark with one single goal in mind — how do we get better today? As long as we stay there we’ll be just fine.”
But, to watch the growth unfold each day, and result in wins, is certainly encouraging as the Mariners enter this final stretch.
After grinding out close wins over Texas the past three days, the Mariners unloaded in the finale. Dylan Moore drove in a career-high four runs, and Kyle Seager and Ty France added two RBI apiece in the win.
The Mariners jumped ahead early again when Kyle Lewis drew a two-out walk in the first. Seager then launched his seventh homer of the season — and second in as many days — to give Seattle a 2-0 advantage. The Rangers never caught up.
Two innings later, Moore crushed a solo shot to center to tack on another run. It was his sixth homer of the season.
Seattle then completely broke loose in the fourth. Evan White and Luis Torrens singled, and J.P. Crawford worked a two-out walk to load the bases. Moore promptly doubled to left to clear the bases and make it 6-2 at that point.
But, the Mariners weren’t done. Lewis drew another walk and Seager was hit by a pitch before France punched a single into left to score two more.
“Anytime you can get some cushion, some insurance runs is huge,” Moore said. “A team like Texas, with all the power they have, they’re never out of it, so it was good that we could get a couple extra runs.”
The breathing room was more than enough for Gonzales, who delivered his fifth quality start in eight starts this season, and picked up his third win in as many outings.
On the heels of his second career complete game last week in Anaheim, Gonzales completed seven on 102 pitches, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out seven. He didn’t issue a walk for the fourth time this season. He dropped his season ERA to 3.02.
“I can’t say enough about the season that Marco is having,” Servais said. “He’s on a great roll and he just carried over what he did over in Anaheim last week into today’s game, and was outstanding. Threw all of his pitches for strikes. Total control the game.”
Gonzales retired his first 10 batters before allowing back-to-back singles to Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Shin-Soo Choo with one out in the fourth. Joey Gallo later doubled both runs in to cut Seattle’s lead to 3-2. But, that was as close as the Rangers got.
“After Seager’s home run, my confidence went through the roof,” Gonzales said. “Even after giving up two, I know that our offense is clicking right now, and so all I had to do was go out and be aggressive attack the zone, and I knew we’d come around and core a lot.
“And thankfully we put up a beginning right there, andd then after that, my goal is to put up a shut down inning. And that’s exactly what I did, just trying to go in and attack guys and get some quick outs.”
Gonzales faced the minimum his final three innings, and struck out both Gallo and Jose Trevino to end his afternoon.
Walker Lockett pitched a scoreless eighth in his first appearance with the Mariners since being claimed off waivers from the Mets last week.
Aaron Fletcher ran into trouble in the ninth, allowing a RBI single to Nick Solak and loading the bases before he was lifted with one out. Yohan Ramirez then gave up a sac fly to Trevino to make it 8-4, and loaded the bases again with a walk to bring the tying run to the plate, but worked a pop up to end the threat.
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 4:13 PM.
