Baseball is a simple game when you hit the ball over the fence and your pitcher refuses to let anyone on base. The Seattle Mariners figured that out again on Saturday night, riding a four-homer barrage and seven brilliant innings from Bryan Woo to a comfortable 5-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. It was their fifth straight win. They are hot.
Woo was lethal. The 26-year-old right-hander carried a perfect game into the fifth inning, striking out five straight batters during one particularly cruel stretch. Adrian Del Castillo finally broke up the bid with a one-out single in the fifth, but that was about all Arizona could muster against Woo, who finished with nine strikeouts and allowed just two hits over his seven frames of work. He earned his fifth win.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s offense did all its damage early, turning Ryne Nelson’s night into a home run derby. Luke Raley started the party in the second with his 13th blast of the year. Dominic Canzone followed shortly after with a solo shot of his own. In the third, rookie Colt Emerson led off with a deep drive, and Julio Rodríguez chased him with his 12th homer of the season. That is ten home runs in May for Rodríguez. The kid is locked in.
Nelson had never given up more than two home runs in any of his previous 89 career starts. Seattle gave him four in three innings. He was done after 5 1/3 innings, tagged for five runs—four earned—on seven hits. Randy Arozarena manufactured the final run in the sixth, reaching on a throwing error and scoring on Cole Young’s sacrifice fly.
The shutout survived until the ninth. Then came the ninth-inning comedy of errors. Alex Hoppe walked a batter, threw a wild pitch, and forgot to cover home plate, allowing Geraldo Perdomo to score all the way from second base. It was a lazy end to an otherwise dominant night. Still, the Mariners are now 30-29, climbing above .500 for the first time since the opening week of the season. They have hit eight home runs in the first two games of this series, a feat they haven’t accomplished since 1999.
A sweep is on the table Sunday. Bryce Miller takes the mound for Seattle against Arizona’s Merrill Kelly.
