Rangers Lose To Mariners
ARLINGTON, Texas — New Seattle manager Scott Servais got some unexpected fireworks in his first career win with the Mariners.
A six-run eighth inning that broke open a 4-2 game included three homers from the Mariners, an ejection of Texas pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen and jawing between Servais and Texas manager Jeff Banister.
By the time the dust had settled, the Mariners were on their way to a 10-2 memorable first win for Servais.
The postgame media scrum for Servais was delayed as he capped the night by getting a celebratory beer shower from the players in the clubhouse.
A two-run seventh had given the Mariners some breathing room before the wild eighth inning. Robinson Cano opened the frame with a homer off Wilhelmsen and after back-to-back doubles, Seth Smith hit the second homer of the frame.
After Smith’s two-run homer off the former Seattle reliever put the Mariners up 8-2, Wilhelmsen hit Chris Iannetta with the next pitch and was ejected. That pitch prompted Iannetta to start yelling at Wilhelmsen, and both managers yelled at each other across the field.
Servais focused on the positives of the offense in the eighth that included six hits.
“We busted out, obviously swung the bats really well,” Servais said. “Huge home
runs — Robby, Smitty, and (Luis) Sardinas capping it off. We’re happy with the way we played tonight.”
For Wilhelmsen, who was charged with five runs on just 12 pitches, the inning came down to a lack of execution.
“It looks like they had a pretty good idea of what I had and they went about it pretty good,” Wilhelmsen said. “On the other hand, my job is to back them off and not make them feel too comfortable like they were feeling. Ugly, embarrassed but we’ll get them tomorrow.”
Sardinas followed the dust-up with his first career homer off Andrew Faulkner to cap the scoring.
Banister declined to go into specifics about what brought him onto the field after the ejection.
“Tom got ejected,” he said. “Emotions got high. That’s about all I can say.”
Servais downplayed the incident too.
“That’s just baseball,” he said. “Leave it at that.”
While Servais downplayed the incident, his player noticed how quickly their manager reacted.
“I like that stuff,” said Cano, who has homered in each game of the series. “You want your manager to get fired up. That’s good. He’s protecting his guy. You want your manager to protect you. You don’t want a manager that doesn’t take care of his players.”
Seven of Seattle’s 11 hits went for extra bases. Smith, Nori Aoki and Nelson Cruz each had two hits for Seattle.
An inning before the eighth-inning fireworks, the Mariners snapped a 2-2 tie with two runs off Texas reliever Tony Barnette (0-1), who was making his major league debut after pitching in Japan for six seasons.
Leonys Martin’s double along with an error by Texas right fielder Shin-Soo Choo allowed Smith to score what turned out to be the game-winning run. Aoki knocked in Martin with a single.
The Mariners got runs off Texas starter Martin Perez in the second and fourth innings. Cruz made it 2-0 with a solo homer in the fourth into the Seattle bullpen.
The Rangers rallied to tie it in the bottom of the fourth on consecutive RBI singles from Elvis Andrus and Robinson Chirinos off Seattle starter Hisashi Iwakuma.
Perez pitched six innings, allowing two runs on two hits. Iwakuma allowed two runs on six hits in five innings.
Seattle right-hander Nick Vincent (1-0) pitched a perfect sixth inning to pick up his first win for the Mariners.
