KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ That was ... wild.
The Mariners scored two runs on one wild pitch in the sixth inning to break a tie, and closer Steve Cishek finished out another shaky ninth inning to secure a 3-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night at Kauffman Stadium.
The win snapped the Mariners' 10-game road-losing skid.
With Nelson Cruz at bat, Yordano Ventura threw a breaking ball that bounced in the dirt and deflected off Royals catcher Salvador Perez, skipping only about 12 feet to the right of the plate. Didn't matter: Mariners runner Seth Smith broke from third base and slid home safely to break a 1-1 tie.
As Smith slid home, Perez's short toss sailed by Ventura, allowing Robinson Cano to also slide in safely for Seattle's third run. Cano had started the play at second base.
The wild pitch came one pitch after a bizarre sequence in which Cruz had an opposite-field three-run home run overturned. First-base umpire C.B. Bucknor initially signaled the ball fair before gathering with the rest of the crew and reversing it. (A formal video review confirmed the foul call.)
Cruz wound up hitting a single later in the at-bat.
Cishek, one night after his fifth blown save of the season in a stunning 4-3 loss in the series opener, picked up his 21st save of the season despite allowing a one-out home run to Perez.
The three runs were enough to back a strong outing from veteran right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma (9-6), who won his third straight start. He allowed only one run in 62/3 innings, with three walks and six strikeouts.
Rookie Edwin Diaz relieved Iwakuma with two on and two outs in the seventh inning and, after falling behind in the count 3-0, got Royals No. 9 hitter Jarrod Dyson to ground out to Cano at second base to end the inning. Cano made a difficult one-hop grounder look rather routine in throwing out the speedy Dyson.
The Mariners tied the score at 1-1 in the fifth by manufacturing a run.
Kyle Seager doubled to lead off the inning, moved to third on Adam Lind's long fly out to right and scored on Ketel Marte's sacrifice fly.
The victory was the Mariners' first on the road since Iwakuma pitched them to a win at Boston on June 17.
It moved the Mariners (44-43) one game over .500 with two games left before the All-Star break.
It also snapped Seattle's 19-game losing streak when scoring three runs or less. The Mariners are now 6-30 when scoring three runs or less (and 38-12 when scoring four runs or more).
