It didn’t seem like a question about whether they would tie the score. It was how large of a lead the Seattle Mariners would have when the top of the eighth ended.
Trailing by a run, the Mariners loaded the bases with no outs and had their three most experienced hitters – Mitch Haniger, Kyle Seager and Ty France – coming to the plate.
Tie score?
A lead?
How about a loss?
The Angels brought in relieve Raisel Iglesias to clean up the mess created by Tony Watson. He did that and more to secure a 3-2 win.
Iglesias got Mitch Haniger to pop out to first base, struck out Kyle Seager after falling behind 3-1 in the count and struck out Ty France looking with a 97 mph fastball painted on the outside corner.
He worked a 1-2-3 ninth, including strikeouts of Jarred Kelenic and Jose Godoy to complete the six-out save.
The Mariners got their first taste of the phenomenon that is Shohei Ohtani — pitching and hitting in the same game. They’d only seen one or other in the same game in past regular-season games.
Ohtani pitched six innings, allowing two runs on four hits with no walks and 10 strikeouts in only 76 pitches to pick up the win. He had 15 swings-and-misses, including eight on his splitfinger fastball that was devastating to Mariners hitters. As a hitter, he went 0 for 2 with a walk.
On Ohtani’s second pitch of the game, J.P. Crawford took advantage of a 92 mph fastball sitting in the middle of the plate, pounding it over the wall in right-center for his third homer of the season.
Crawford pushed the lead to 2-0 in the third inning. Taylor Trammell led off with a double to right field. Donovan Walton sacrifice bunted Trammell to third and Crawford scored him with a sacrifice fly to left field.
The Angels answered in the bottom half of the inning against Mariners spot starter Robert Dugger. Taking the place of Justin Dunn, who was placed on the injured list Wednesday with shoulder inflammation, Dugger used a key double play to escape a second inning that seemed doomed for multiple runs.
But he gave up a one-out single to David Fletcher in the third inning and then hung a first-pitch curveball to Justin Upton that was deposited into the visitor’s bullpen of Angels Stadium to make it 2-2.
Lefty Daniel Zamora finished the third inning for Dugger, walking Ohtani and then getting an inning-ending double play.
With Ohtani dealing and limiting damage to everyone other than Crawford, the Angels took the lead in the fourth inning when Jose Rojas took advantage of a 1-1 fastball that lefty Hector Santiago, who replaced Zamora, left over the middle of the plate. Rojas hit a line drive just barely over the wall in right field and into the seats.
Even Zamora wasn’t a sure it was a homer and stopped at second base before being told it was his third homer of the season.
