SEATTLE _ Far too often this season, a Seattle Mariners' miscue in the field _ and there have been so, so many _ has led to unnecessary runs and more than a few losses. Their league-leading 99 errors have led to 76 unearned runs, both tops in all of Major League Baseball.
But on a night where they were facing the Detroit Tigers, a team that somehow has a significantly worse record than them, which isn't easy to do, the Mariners took advantage of an opponent's defensive miscue to break open a tie game and roll to an easy 10-2 victory.
The Mariners have won three of their past four games and improved to 43-63, while the Tigers fell to 30-68, which is the worst record in baseball.
The seminal moment came in the bottom of the third inning. The Tigers had grabbed a 1-0 lead in the top of the frame on a solo homer from one-time Mariners' catching prospect John Hicks.
Seattle immediately answered against Detroit starter Drew VerHagen.
Making his first Major League start, infielder Tim Lopes worked a walk in his first big league plate appearance. Later with one out, the Mariners loaded the bases when J.P. Crawford singled and Omar Narvaez worked a walk to bring Daniel Vogelbach to the plate.
It wasn't an ideal situation for VerHagen, but he was able to get Vogelbach to hit a ground ball to second base. Given Vogelbach's foot speed, or lack thereof, it should have been an easy double play.
Instead second baseman Niko Goodrum fielded the ball, tried to tag Narvaez as he ran to second and missed. He then dropped the ball while trying to throw to first to salvage the situation. A play that should've ended the inning instead resulted in a run scored and no outs.
The Mariners made that mistake really hurt when Tim Beckham clobbered an 0-2 hanging breaking ball into the visitor's bullpen for his second grand slam of the season and a 5-1 lead.
One mistake led to five runs and the Tigers were done. Seattle has felt that pain this season.
Seattle continued to tack on runs, adding two more in the fourth inning. After Lopes took a 91 mph fastball from VerHagen off the earflap of his helmet to start the fourth inning, he later scored on Crawford's triple to the corner. Narvaez followed with an RBI double.
Kyle Seager smoked a solo homer in the fifth inning for his eighth homer of the season and the eighth run of the game. Vogelbach plated two more runs in the eighth with an opposite field two-run double.
Lefty Wade LeBlanc, who entered the game after two scoreless innings from opener Erik Swanson, put the run support to good use. After allowing the Hicks homer in the third, he surrendered just one additional run over his next five innings of work. He finished with six innings pitched, two runs allowed (one earned) on four hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
