Ty France leads offensive power surge in Mariners’ 8-1 rout of Marlins
SEATTLE – Just who, exactly, are these guys?
It’s a fair question, isn’t it, 65 games into the season?
The Mariners have been a maddeningly inconsistent club, and they limped home late Sunday after a 2-6 trip that dropped them 10 games out of the American League West lead, one question after another piling up on a team expected to contend for the postseason.
For one night, anyway, they offered some encouraging answers.
Ty France hit a three-run home run to break things open early – the first of three Mariners homers – and rookie Bryce Miller took a no-hitter into the fifth inning to lift the Mariners to a rare runaway victory, 8-1, to open a series against the Miami Marlins on Monday night at T-Mobile Park.
Teoscar Hernandez continued his torrid June with a scorching double to drive in the Mariners’ first run off Jesus Luzardo in the first inning, and Julio Rodriguez hit an opposite-field single to drive in the first of four runs with two outs in these second inning to give the Mariners a 6-0 lead.
Eugenio Suarez hit a monster blast to right-center in the fifth inning to extend the lead to 7-1, a 420-foot blast that charted as one of the longest ever hit to the opposite field at T-Mobile Park.
Tom Murphy added a line-drive home run to straightaway center field in the eighth inning – his second of the year – to make it 8-1.
Who, indeed, are these guys?
And could this power surge be a sign of things to come?
A year ago, the Mariners (32-33) rode their power bats to make a second-half surge and reach the postseason for the first time in 21 years.
Do they have another surge in them this summer?
The Mariners got the pitching they needed Monday.
Miller was sharp over six innings, allowing only a solo home run to Nick Fortes with two outs in the fifth inning as he rebounded from back-to-back ugly starts.
Fortes’ homer was the only hit of the game for the Marlins.
Miller struck out six and walked three. He had allowed a combined 19 hits and 15 earned runs in his last two starts, blowout losses to the Yankees and Rangers.
The rookie right-hander was strong early, touching 97 mph in the first inning on back-to-back strikeouts of Jorge Soler and Bryan De La Cruz.
He struggled to find the strike zone to open the second inning, walking the first two batters he faced. But he got Jean Segura, the ex-Mariner, to hit into a broken-bat double play and retired Jon Berti on a deep fly to right-center that Rodriguez tracked down nicely just in front of the warning track.
Perhaps most impressive, Miller retired Luis Arraez all three times he faced him. Arraez, the Marlins’ leadoff hitter, entered the game leading MLB with a .397 batting average.
Mariners reliever Ty Adcock, called up from Class AA Arkansas earlier in the day, pitched two scoreless innings in his major-league debut.
Adcock got Arraez to ground out to end the eighth inning. Arraez finished 0 for 4.
The Marlins (37-30) have been one of the hottest teams in baseball, winning 13 of their last 16 games coming into the series.