CLEVELAND — The potential of all that this Mariners lineup could be and what it could produce if a few things go right has yet to truly manifest itself over the first week of the season.
But in the chill of temps in the high 30s, Seattle provided an extended glimpse of ideal production, scoring five runs in two innings to rally for a 5-3 win over the Cleveland Guardians.
Julio Rodriguez’s two-run homer through the biting wind coming off Lake Erie provided the difference as Seattle opened its first road trip of the season with a victory.
Down 3-0 and doing little against Cleveland starter Aaron Civale and his assortment of non-fastballs, the Mariners finally got going in the fifth inning.
Cooper Hummel led off the inning with crisp single to right field — his first hit as a Mariner. He showed off his better than average speed, scoring from first base on J.P. Crawford’s double into the left-field corner for Seattle’s first run of the game. Ty France cut the lead to 3-2 with a crisp two-out single to left field that scored Crawford easily.
In the sixth inning, Jarred Kelenic hustled for a double on a line drive to right-center, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Crawford’s hard double to right-center off Civale.
Cleveland manager Terry Francona called on side-arming right-hander Nick Sandlin to face Rodriguez, who turned a low slider into this 30th career homer.
The Mariners got outstanding relief work as Penn Murfee, Trevor Gott, Matt Brash, Andres Munoz and Paul Sewald each put up a scoreless inning.
Seattle got a short and inefficient start from Logan Gilbert in his second outing of the season.
Gilbert pitched four innings, allowing three runs on six hits with two walks and six strikeouts. Both walks issued by Gilbert ended up scoring runs, which is something that has eaten at manager Scott Servais over the eight games of the season.
Perhaps more concerning was that Gilbert, after a difficult first inning where he threw 23 pitches and allowed three straight one-out hits for a run, seemed to labor through the third and fourth inning. His fastball velocity, which started out at 94-96 mph in the early innings dipped to 91-93 mph in the last innings.
In the third inning, a four-pitch walk to Amed Rosario with one out proved costly. He would later score on Josh Bell’s two-out single to right field.
In the fourth inning, Gilbert issued a one-out walk to Andres Gimenez and then allowed him to steal second with frightening ease. That extra base proved costly when Myles Straw singled to center to score Gimenez and make it 3-0.
