Out of Right Field: Recap, takeaways from the Mariners’ 7-6 win over the Royals
Daniel Vogelbach hit a home run in the 10th inning as the Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals on Thursday afternoon in Kansas City, Missouri, for their sixth straight victory.
Mitch Haniger hit a two-run triple with two outs in the top of the ninth inning to tie the score at 6-6 as the Mariners rallied from a four-run deficit to force extra innings.
The Mariners set a major-league record by homering in their 15th consecutive game to start the season, breaking the mark of 14 set by the 2002 Cleveland Indians.
The historic homer came from an unlikely source, No. 9 hitter Dee Gordon, who has 16 HRs in his nine-year career. Gordon led off the sixth inning with a home run down the right-field line at Kauffman Stadium, where he served as a bat boy as a youth when his father, Tom, pitched for the Royals.
Jorge Lopez pitched six strong innings, allowing two runs on three hits, and the Royals hit three homers off Mariners right-hander Mike Leake (2-1).
Leake went five innings, allowing four runs on five hits with two walks and four strikeouts.
Of note
M’s 1B/OF Jay Bruce, who entered Thursday’s game tied for the major-league lead with seven home runs, didn’t play because of a sore left Achilles tendon. … 3B Ryon Healy doubled in the seventh inning, his MLB-leading 12th extra-base hit of the season. … RHP Erik Swanson, acquired as part of the offseason trade with the New York Yankees for James Paxton, made his major-league debut in the seventh inning. He’s the fifth rookie to make his debut for the M’s this season, joining IF Dylan Moore, LHP Yusei Kikuchi, RHP Brandon Brennan and OF Braden Bishop. Swanson pitched two innings and allowed two runs on three hits with two walks and four strikeouts.
By the numbers
2: The number of quality starts (six or more innings and three earned runs or fewer allowed) by opposing pitchers against the Mariners this season, by Lopez and the Los Angeles Angels’ Trevor Cahill.
Our take from right field
The Mariners have won each of the five series they’ve played this season. We should find out how real these M’s are on the next homestand, with the Houston Astros and Cleveland Indians, both division winners last season, visiting T-Mobile Park. The Astros will send co-aces Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole to the mound this weekend.
Up next
After going 5-2 on their seven-game trip to Chicago and Kansas City, the Mariners return home to face the Houston at 7:10 p.m. Friday. LHP Wade LeBlanc (2-0, 4.76 ERA) is scheduled to face Astros LHP Wade Miley (1-1, 2.31), who played for the M’s in 2016.