ANAHEIM, Calif. _ After seeing the strategy work well against them on multiple occasions over the past season and a half and then failing to find success when they tried to do the same, the Mariners finally got the results they wanted when "opener" Austin Adams worked a 1-2-3 first inning with strikeouts of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani.
Throw in a solid "relief" appearance from scheduled starter Wade LeBlanc, six home runs, including two each from Edwin Encarnacion and Tom Murphy, and a rare error-free game in the field and you get a drama-free 9-3 victory over the Angels on a sun-drenched Sunday afternoon at Angels Stadium.
With the win, the Mariners (28-41) won their first series of three-plus games since taking three of four from the Angels at Angels Stadium on April 18-21.
During that earlier four-game series in Anaheim, the Mariners won the first three games. Since that series clinching win on April 20, the Mariners had gone 11-33 until Sunday's win.
They travel to Minnesota where they'll have Monday off and open a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins, who have the second best record in the American League.
Right-hander Adams, who gave up three runs in his first attempt at opening a game, wanted another chance at the duty. This time he delivered, working a 1-2-3 inning with impressive swinging strikeouts of Trout and Ohtani in the first.
LeBlanc entered in the bottom of the second and didn't inherit a three-run deficit but a 2-0 lead thanks to Murphy, who clubbed a two-run homer to left off Angels starter Jose Suarez in the top of the inning.
And for the second time as "reliever" in his scheduled start, he gave a solid performance, pitching six innings and allowing two runs on six hits with a walk and eight strikeouts to improve to 3-2. In his two "relief" outings, LeBlanc has pitched 14 innings, allowing three runs on nine total hits with a two walks and 10 strikeouts.
After a clean second inning, LeBlanc gave up a solo homer to Tommy La Stella with two outs in the third to trim the lead to 2-1.
It stayed that way until the sixth inning when Edwin Encarnacion a hit a line drive over the wall in left-center off right-hander Cody Allen and Daniel Vogelbach followed with a towering homer to deep right field that MLB Statcast measured at 448 feet to push the lead to 4-1. Kyle Seager added an RBI single off Allen's replacement Nick Tropeano to add to the lead.
The Mariners picked up two more in the seventh inning when Encarnacion clubbed his second homer of the game _ a massive shot to left field. It gave him 20 homers on the season and more importantly it was his 400th career home run. He's now hit 20 or more homers in 10 of his last 12 seasons, including the last eight seasons. Since 2012, he's hit 283 homer, which is more than any MLB player in that time frame.
Murphy continued to show why he's been a solid pickup early in the season in a trade with the Rockies. He hit his second homer of the game in the eighth inning to get back a run scored off LeBlanc in the seventh. After doing some swing work with hitting coach Tim Laker, Murphy has five homers in his last five games despite playing on a limited basis while splitting time with Omar Narvaez.
Kyle Seager finalized the homer parade in the ninth inning, launching his fourth homer in 16 games played. The two-run shot to deep right-center was the Mariners' 126th homer of the season, moving them ahead of the Twins for the MLB lead. Minnesota hit four homers on the day, giving them a total of 125.
