ARLINGTON, Texas — For two days, J.P. Crawford sat and stewed, staring at his swollen index finger and cursing the baseball gods for letting such annoyance keep him from playing.
There are few things in life that anger him more than watching his teammates play baseball without him.
On Saturday, Crawford was nothing but smiles as he returned to the lineup and helped the Mariners win their 13th game in a row.
Facing lefty Brett Martin, Crawford pulled a groundball single just past Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe in the top of the 10th inning to score pinch runner Sam Haggerty from third base for the go-ahead run.
With Andres Munoz, Erik Swanson, Paul Sewald and Diego Castillo already used in the game, the Mariners turned to right-hander Matt Festa.
The man of many sliders struck out the side in the bottom of the 10th to secure a 3-2 victory.
Seattle got an abbreviated start from Logan Gilbert, which was by design. Sensing a little fatigue from the big right-hander in recent outings and taking note of a heavy workload of 106 innings pitched coming into the outing, the Mariners decided to dial back his final start before the All-Star break.
“We’ll probably keep a closer eye on him today,” manager Scott Servais said pregame. “He has carried a ton of innings already. He’s been really consistent and really good. But you know this getting this close to the break … don’t be surprised if he’s out a little bit earlier than normal today. I’m not going to run him to 110 pitches. I will tell you that right now.”
Servais let Gilbert get to 85 pitches in five innings before removing him from the game.
Over those five innings, Gilbert allowed one run on four hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
Gilbert’s one run allowed came in the second inning. He allowed a leadoff double to Lowe, who later came around to score on Jonah Heim’s single to center.
The Mariners answered with two runs off Rangers starter Spencer Howard in top of the third inning. Ty France doubled with one out — his second of three hits in the game. With two outs, Carlos Santana, who returned to the Mariners after traveling to see what was left of his home in Florida following a fire, smashed a fastball deep into the seats in right-center for his eighth homer of the season.
The 2-1 lead held up until the seventh inning.
Right-hander Swanson gave up a lead-off double to Leody Taveras, who eventually came around to score on Elier Hernandez’s single to center and tied the game at 2.
