BALTIMORE — When you’ve lost more than half the games you’ve played on the road this season, and had won just one road series, even if it did come against one of the better teams in baseball in the New York Mets, it’s clear that victory will never be simple or a given, regardless of opponent.
But as difficult as they made it on themselves early in the game, the Mariners persevered through mistakes, a blown three-run lead and memories of past failures to pick up a 7-6 victory in 10 innings over the Baltimore Orioles in a four-hour marathon on Thursday.
Diego Castillo gave one of his best pitching performances since being acquired at midseason in 2021, pitching two shutout innings — the ninth and 10th — to get the victory.
Seattle provided him just one run of cushion.
Looking for a fly ball to the outfield to score Eugenio Suarez from third base, Abraham Toro crushed a deep fly ball to center field that Cedric Mullins couldn’t corral as he slammed into the wall. The 400-foot blast went for a triple.
The Mariners failed to add on any insurance runs as Toro remained stranded at third, but Castillo made it hold up in his longest appearance in two seasons.
Seattle got a decent but abbreviated start from right-hander Chris Flexen, who worked five innings and allowed three runs on six hits with a walk and three strikeouts.
Baltimore jumped on Flexen in the first inning, picking up a pair of runs on an RBI single through the shift for Austin Hays and a double to left from Ryan Mountcastle.
The Mariners answered with a pair of runs in the third inning to briefly tie the game at 2. Taylor Trammell led off with a bloop double, advanced to third on the first of Torrens’ three hits and scored on Winker’s single to right field. Torrens would later score when Julio Rodriguez stole second base and catcher Adley Rutschman’s off-line throw bounced into center field.
Flexen gave up his third run of the outing in the bottom of the inning. Cedric Mullins led off with a double and later scored on Austin Hays bloop single to right field. Flexen limited the damage to just one run, getting Mountcastle to fly out to center and striking out Rutschman to end the inning.
Down 3-2, the Mariners rallied for four runs in the top of the sixth, seemingly taking control of the game … for that half inning.
A bloop RBI single from Eugenio Suarez tied the game and a sacrifice fly from Adam Frazier gave Seattle a 4-3 lead. Luis Torrens added two insurance runs that would quickly be wasted, hitting a linedrive up the middle that almost took the hat of reliever Joey Krehbiehl off his head. Torrens’ third hit of the night scored a pair of runs and make it 6-3.
But the lead was short-lived.
Matt Festa entered the game and immediately a mess, hitting Rutschman, giving up a double into the left field corner to Ramon Urias that scored Rutschman from first base and hitting Rougned Odor.
Understanding the need to quell the building momentum, manager Scott Servais went to his best reliever — Paul Sewald — to clean up the inning. Sewald got Chris Owings to ground out softly back to the mound. But the soft bouncer moved the runners to second and third. That loomed large when Cedric Mullins doubled into the left field corner to score both runners and tie the game at 6-6.
