Mitch Garver slugged a two-run homer Friday night and Luis Castillo worked six solid innings as the Seattle Mariners edged the visiting Texas Rangers 3-2.
Castillo (6-7) gave up four hits and two runs while walking one and striking out seven. After permitting three hits and both runs in the first inning, he stifled Texas over the next five innings. Three Seattle relievers got the last nine outs, with Ryan Stanek pitching the ninth inning for his sixth save.
Andrew Heaney (2-8) lasted 4 2/3 innings for Texas, allowing three runs on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts. Jose Urena supplied 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief, but the Rangers weren’t able to come up with an equalizing run.
The Mariners won for the fifth time in six games, while the Rangers saw their two-game winning streak end.
Texas got the potential tying run to second base with two outs in the eighth when Andres Munoz balked pinch runner Travis Jankowski into scoring position. Hoewver, Munoz got Adolis Garcia to swing through a high, tight 97 mph fastball for a third strike, quashing the threat.
The Rangers’ Wyatt Langford doubled to left-center with one out in the ninth, but Stanek retired the next two hitters via a popup and a grounder.
Texas got off the mark quickly against Castillo. Marcus Semien beat out an infield hit to start the game and then hoofed it home from first when Nathaniel Lowe drilled a two-out, RBI double to the left-center-field wall. Langford cashed in Lowe with a run-scoring single to center.
The 2-0 advantage didn’t last long. With Julio Rodriguez aboard after a two-out walk in the bottom of the frame, Garver punished a hanging breaking ball, drilling it just over the leap of center fielder Leody Taveras for his eighth homer of the year to tie the game.
Seattle got its margin of victory in the third. Consecutive singles by J.P. Crawford and Mitch Haniger put men at the corners with no outs. Rodriguez scored Crawford with a fielder’s-choice bouncer to second.
Haniger and Victor Robles had two hits apiece for Seattle. Langford was the only Ranger with multiple hits.
–Field Level Media