Mariners top Twins behind Josh Naylor’s three-run blast

MINNEAPOLIS – On a night where he was thrown out on a stolen base attempt for the first time in his tenure with the Mariners and then thrown out again on an attempt two innings later, Josh Naylor found a more enjoyable and productive way to run the bases – trotting around them.

Naylor clubbed a three-run homer in the eighth inning off reliever Cole Sands, turning the Mariners’ one-run lead into a comfortable four-run cushion in what would be an eventual 7-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

With temperatures in the low 50s for most of Tuesday evening, but free of precipitation at Target Field, the Mariners scored six runs against the Twins’ bullpen in the final three innings to turn a starting-pitching duel into a comfortable victory and improve to 15-16 on the season.

“Great ballgame,” manager Dan Wilson said. “We had contributions up and down the lineup. Naylor had the big blow there to give us a bigger lead.”

Naylor stepped to the plate with one out in the top of the eighth with J.P. Crawford on third and Julio Rodríguez on second and the Mariners leading 2-1.

Normally a fan of swinging at the first pitch, Naylor watched a curveball that was nowhere near the strike zone go by for a ball. Sands came back with a cutter at the top of the zone.

“I knew I was going to get a cutter eventually,” Naylor said. “That’s that guy’s miss the barrel pitch so I was waiting on it.”

Naylor unleashed a vicious swing that carried him over the plate and into the right-handed batter’s box after contact. He admired the blast that carried over the right field seats and onto the plaza for his fourth homer of the season.

“I was just trying to hit a single or a sac fly, anything to get the outfielders left or right or move back on,” said Naylor, who finished with three hits and four RBI on the night.

The Mariners continued to add on. Rodríguez drove in two more runs in the ninth with his third double of the game, a ringing line drive into the left field corner off right-hander Luis Garcia.

Cole Young also added three hits on the night. His single to left off lefty Cody Funderburk in the sixth inning, broke a 1-1 tie and gave Seattle the lead for good. It was Young’s fifth straight game with at least one RBI, which is the longest streak by a Mariner this season. He is now 9 for 18 on the road trip. More impressively, he’s batting .324 (11-for-34) vs. left-handed pitchers this season with a double, a triple and two homers while driving in eight runs.

“I feel like the key is just not trying to do too much, especially tonight,” Young said of his approach against lefties. “The guy throws a lot of sinkers so I’m just trying to stay on it and hit it the other way.”

The Mariners had 12 hits and struck out seven times. The Twins bullpen, which relies heavily on breaking pitches, struck out only one of the 17 Mariners hitters that it faced.

“We had a lot of professional at-bats tonight,” Naylor said. “We’ve got to carry that on to tomorrow and for the rest of the year. Some days are going to be really, really good. Some days are going to be really, really bad. That’s just the name of the game. But if we can control, having a professional at-bat every time, the results will come.”

For the first five-plus innings, neither team mustered much offense with respective starters Logan Gilbert and Joe Ryan holding their opponents to one run apiece.

Gilbert pitched five innings, allowing one run on six hits with a walk, a hit batter and four strikeouts.

His last two innings were a bit of a grind, being forced to work with heavy traffic on the bases.

A leadoff single to Josh Bell and a mishandled grounder by Cole Young on what could’ve been a double play ball, forced Gilbert to labor through the fourth inning. The Twins loaded the bases on a one-out walk by Luke Keaschall. But Gilbert came back to strike out Tristan Gray and get a force out on Royce Lewis to end the inning.

His one run allowed came immediately in the fifth inning.

A first-pitch four-seam fastball to Byron Buxton to start the inning was turned into a solo homer to left-center. Buxton, who jumped on a first-pitch fastball in his previous plate appearance, made it back-to-back games with a homer, breaking a scoreless tie.

Gilbert gave up a double on his next offering – a first-pitch changeup to Trevor Larnach.

It wasn’t an ideal way to start the inning. But Gilbert got Austin Martin to fly out right and struck out Bell swinging for two much-needed outs. After hitting Kody Clemens to load the bases, Gilbert got Victor Caratini to ground into a force out at second.

Two innings of multiple high-stress pitches with runners in scoring position was enough for manager Dan Wilson to go to his bullpen.

Eduard Bazardo, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Cooper Criswell threw the final four innings, each going one frame.

Naylor’s stolen base streak ends

Naylor got greedy a little earlier than he wanted and it ended his run of base-stealing perfection.

After singling to right field off Twins starter Joe Ryan to start the fourth inning Tuesday, Naylor had every intention of stealing second base to get into scoring position in a scoreless game.

With Randy Arozarena at the plate, Naylor worked to time up Ryan’s delivery to the plate.

After Arozarena struck out for the first out of the inning, Naylor opted to try and steal second with Luke Raley at the plate. His jump was a little too early. Ryan noticed him going early and fired to first baseman Kody Clemens, who threw to second base where Gray was waiting to tag out Naylor, who didn’t even slide.

It was the first time Naylor had been thrown out on a stolen base since joining the Mariners, ending a streak of 25 straight successful steals.

Naylor started a different kind of streak, getting thrown out again in the sixth inning on a stolen base attempt. He was originally called safe, but a replay review overturned the call.