Julio Rodriguez’s broken-bat single brought home the go-ahead run in the bottom of the seventh inning and he capped the rally with a steal of home as the Seattle Mariners defeated the visiting Boston Red Sox 6-3 on Wednesday.
The Mariners’ Cal Raleigh homered for the fifth time in six games against Boston this season. The Mariners took two of three games in the series between American League wild-card contenders.
Jarren Duran went deep for the Red Sox, who lost for the fourth time in their past five games.
Seattle’s Matt Brash (7-3) pitched a scoreless inning of relief for the victory and Andres Munoz worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his third save. Boston reliever John Schreiber (1-1) took the loss.
Trailing 3-0, the Mariners began their comeback in the sixth inning. Eugenio Suarez doubled to left with one out and Raleigh followed with a two-run shot to right off Schreiber. It was Raleigh’s 17th homer of the season.
Seattle took the lead with a four-run seventh. Newly acquired Dominic Canzone led off with a walk and Tom Murphy singled down the left-field line. Pinch-hitter Cade Marlowe greeted reliever Richard Bleier with a single to right to tie the score and leave runners at the corners.
An out later, Rodriguez hit a slow roller that trickled into left field when third baseman Rafael Devers and shortstop Yu Chang collided as the shattered bat sailed past them, scoring Murphy from third to make it 4-3. Suarez lined a run-scoring single to right to extend the lead and, with two outs, he and Rodriguez pulled off a double steal to cap the scoring.
The Red Sox got on the scoreboard in the third as Connor Wong drew a leadoff walk and, an out later, Duran went deep to right.
The Red Sox tacked on a run in the fifth as Wong led off with a double to left, moved to third on Chang’s single and scored on Masataka Yoshida’s two-out infield single.
Red Sox right-hander Kutter Crawford pitched five scoreless innings in his bid to win consecutive starts for the first time in his career, but the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead. Crawford allowed four hits, walked one and struck out five.
Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert put up a quality start, as he gave up three runs on five hits in six innings, with three walks and five strikeouts.
–Field Level Media