George Kirby continued his mastery of the Texas Rangers, allowing one run over 5 2/3 innings, as the host Seattle Mariners posted a 7-3 victory Saturday against their American League West rivals.
Luke Raley homered for the Mariners, who snapped a four-game losing streak and beat Texas for the first time in five tries this season.
Seattle closer Andres Munoz entered with two outs and the bases loaded in the ninth and struck out Brandon Nimmo for the right-hander’s second save of the season.
Josh Jung went deep for the Rangers, who had won their previous two games.
Trailing 7-1, the Rangers scored twice in the ninth off Cole Wilcox, with singles by Wyatt Langford and Josh Smith and a walk to Jung loading the bases. Evan Carter hit a sacrifice fly down the right field line caught in foul territory by second baseman Cole Young. Ezequiel Duran’s run-scoring double into the left field corner made it 7-3 and a walk to Kyle Higashioka forced the Mariners to use Munoz.
Kirby (3-2) improved to 9-1 in 12 career starts against Texas. The right-hander gave up seven hits, walked two and struck out five. The only run he allowed came on Jung’s homer to straightaway center field with one out in the sixth that trimmed Seattle’s lead to 3-1.
An out later, Duran grounded a single to right, ending Kirby’s outing. Reliever Matt Brash got Higashioka to ground out to short to end the threat.
Raley led off the bottom of the inning with a towering shot to right off Nathan Eovaldi (2-3) to restore Seattle’s three-run lead.
The Mariners scored three more runs off Cal Quantrill in the eighth. Raley drew a one-out walk and took third on Dominic Canzone’s double off the wall in left. Young grounded a two-run single to center against a drawn-in infield to make it 6-1. Young stole second, took third on catcher Higashioka’s throwing error and scored on Leo Rivas’ sacrifice fly.
Eovaldi gave up four runs (two earned) on eight hits in five-plus innings. The righty walked one and struck out three.
The Mariners opened the scoring in the first. J.P. Crawford, batting leadoff with Brendan Donovan out with a hip injury, doubled to right and advanced as Cal Raleigh grounded out to first. With the infield drawn in, Julio Rodriguez grounded an RBI single into right.
Seattle extended its lead with a pair of unearned runs in the fourth. With one out, Randy Arozarena hit a bloop single down the right field line. Raley grounded to second, with Duran’s throw in a bid to start a double play sailing into left field, putting the runners at second and third. With the infield again drawn in, Canzone hit a hard grounder up the middle to make it 3-0.
Nimmo got his 1,000th career hit with an eighth-inning single.
–Field Level Media
