Less than 24 hours earlier, Mariners manager Scott Servais could only shake his head at the myriad line drives and deep flyouts that found their way into the gloves of the Arizona Diamondbacks. When put 14 balls are put into play with exit velocities of 94 mph or higher and only three result in hits, a one-run loss will eat at your guts and play tricks with your mind.
But the baseball gods are fair-minded entities, and Servais and the Mariners were justly rewarded for the many hard-hit balls Saturday night in a 7-3 drubbing of the Diamondbacks.
With the win, the Mariners snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 20-25.
The Mariners roughed up right-hander Zac Gallen from the first pitch of the game, handing him his worst start of his career, scoring seven runs off him in five innings on seven hits with walks. Coming into the game, Gallen had a 2.29 ERA in nine starts with 60 strikeouts and 17 walks in 55 innings pitched.
Ty France continued to make a solid first impression since joining the Mariners, homering for the second straight game. With one out, he sat on a hanging curveball from Gallen and crushed it into the seats in left-center for a 1-0 lead.
After striking out Kyle Lewis for the second out of the inning, Gallen walked Kyle Seager and gave up a run-scoring double to the left-center wall to Jose Marmolejos that made it 2-0. With Gallen still scuffling, Evan White worked a walk after falling behind 0-2 in the count and Luis Torrens followed with a two-run double to left.
The Mariners continued to grind out at-bats against Gallen. Seager worked a bases-loaded walk in the second inning that made it 5-0.
And even when Arizona got two runs back in the fourth inning, Marmolejos answered with a two-run missile to right field that made it 7-2. It was his fifth homer of the season and his career.
The Mariners got another solid start from lefty Justus Sheffield, who has become the rotation's second best starter behind Marco Gonzales.
Sheffield pitched seven innings, allowing two runs on five hits with three walks and seven strikeouts to improve to 3-3 on the season. It was his sixth quality start (six innings-plus pitched, three runs or fewer allowed) in his last seven outings.
