Teoscar Hernandez singled home the winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning against his former team as the Seattle Mariners rallied to defeat the visiting Toronto Blue Jays 3-2 on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series.
The Mariners rallied off Toronto closer Jordan Romano (4-5).
Jose Caballero led off with a walk and took second on J.P. Crawford’s sacrifice bunt. With first base open, the Blue Jays intentionally walked All-Star Julio Rodriguez.
Eugenio Suarez flied out to deep right field, allowing both runners to tag and advance, before Hernandez lined the next pitch over right fielder George Springer’s head and off the top of the wall to score Caballero.
Paul Sewald (3-0) pitched a scoreless top of the ninth to earn the victory.
Yusei Kikuchi tossed 5 1/3 scoreless innings in his return to Seattle and Danny Jansen homered for the Blue Jays, who took their third loss in four games.
Kikuchi, a left-hander who pitched for the Mariners from 2019-21 before signing with Toronto as a free agent before last season, allowed five hits, walked one and struck out eight, one shy of his season high.
Jansen hit a solo shot to left field with one out in the fifth off Mariners rookie right-hander Bryce Miller to open the scoring.
Miller also went 5 1/3 innings and gave up one run on three hits. He walked two and fanned six.
The Blue Jays added a run in the seventh as Daulton Varsho led off with an infield single and stole second. Varsho took third on Jansen’s groundout before Santiago Espinal struck out. Prelander Berroa then took over on the mound for his major league debut, and he promptly threw a wild pitch to score Varsho.
The Mariners halved the deficit in the bottom of the inning.
Ty France drew a leadoff walk and AJ Pollock doubled into the left field corner. The Blue Jays brought in Erik Swanson, acquired in an offseason trade with Seattle, and pinch hitter Mike Ford greeted him with a bloop single into shallow left field to make it 2-1 and leave runners at the corners.
Caballero then hit a two-hopper to first baseman Brandon Belt, who charged the ball and threw out Pollock at the plate. Swanson got Crawford to fly out to right field before walking Rodriguez on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases. Swanson struck out Suarez to get out of the inning.
After Blue Jays pinch hitter Alejandro Kirk grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded in the top of the eighth, the Mariners responded.
With one out in the bottom of the inning, Tom Murphy singled to center. France then doubled into the left field corner to tie the score at 2-2.
–Field Level Media
