SEATTLE — Ruled out, initially, Jarred Kelenic took off his helmet, then his batting gloves, and sat on his rear end on the infield dirt, leaning back on his hands, his right leg stretched out over second base.
He must’ve sat there for two minutes after Mariners manager Scott Servais challenged the ruling on the stolen-base attempt.
Finally, the announcement from umpire Mark Carlson: call overturned, runner is safe.
Kelenic, still sitting, leaned his head back, looked up at the sky and smiled. The ballpark deejay quickly queued up John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” Kelenic’s new walk-up song and, suddenly, a singalong favorite for everyone at T-Mobile Park these days.
On the next pitch, Mike Ford singled on a ground ball up the middle and Kelenic sprinted home, scoring easily during the Mariners’ breakthrough fifth inning en route to a rousing, 8-4 come-from-behind victory over the Washington Nationals on Monday night.
J.P. Crawford and Eugenio Suarez hit solo home runs, and the Mariners (38-39) then turned to a small-ball style to erase an early two-run deficit.
Kelenic singled in the fourth inning and advanced to second when Nationals starter Trevor Williams was called for a balk on a three-disengagements rule, the first time the Mariners have benefited from that new rule this season.
Julio Rodriguez then singled for the third time, driving in Kelenic from second to tie the score 3-3.
In the fifth, Teoscar Hernandez singled off the foot of Nationals reliever Cory Abbott and moved to second on an unusual throwing error by first baseman Dominic Smith.
Hernandez moved to third on a Cal Raleigh ground out and then scored the go-ahead run on Suarez’s deep sacrifice fly to the right-field corner.
With two outs, Kelenic drew a four-pitch walk and then stole second — an out call overturned after the review — when he deftly slid around the tag attempt from shortstop CJ Abrams.
Ford followed with the RBI single, and Kolten Wong added a double off the top of the wall in right-center, scoring Ford from first to make it 6-3.
Ty France singled to drive in Crawford in the eighth, and Hernandez followed with a sac fly to score Julio to make it 8-3.
The Mariners, who arrived home Sunday night after a 2-4 East Coast road swing through New York and Baltimore, are looking to take advantage of a young and rebuilding Nationals squad (30-47) that has the fewest wins in the National League.
Things didn’t start out so well for Mariners ace Luis Castillo, who gave up a leadoff homer to Lane Thomas just three pitches in.
Castillo wasn’t particularly sharp early, allowing a run in each of the first three innings.
He did settled down after that to throw seven solid innings, allowing two earned run, scattering seven hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts.
Crawford answered with a leadoff homer for the Mariners in the bottom of the first, his second leadoff homer this season and sixth overall.
It was the first time since 2013 that the Mariners have played in a game in which both teams hit a leadoff homer (Brad Miller for the Mariners and Ben Zobrist for the Rays in Tampa Bay) — and the first time that’s ever happened in a game played in Seattle.
Suarez homered off Williams to lead off the fourth inning, cutting the Mariners’ deficit to 3-2.
It was Suarez’s eighth home run of the season and he leads the team with 46 RBIs.
The Nationals scored one run in the ninth off Tayler Saucedo. With the bases loaded and two outs, Servais called on Paul Sewald to face Jeimer Candelario, the Nationals’ No. 3 hitter.
Sewald struck him out looking at a 1-2 slider off the plate away for the final out. It was Sewald’s 14th save.
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