Mariners jump on Angels early, Julio Rodriguez homers again
ANAHEIM, Calif. – The game shouldn’t have been such an ordeal. The Seattle Mariners took advantage of a young pitcher making his major league debut and a costly mistake to score five runs in the first inning.
And yet everything about Seattle’s 9-5 victory over the Angels felt more difficult than it needed be like going to Disneyland on the last holiday weekend of the summer.
Perhaps it was due to the continued “struggles” of one of their best starting pitchers.
The Mariners got another uneven outing from starter George Kirby, who hasn’t looked like his normal, angry, strike-throwing self for his past five outings. There’s just been the anger and that’s been fueled by frustration from poor results and wandering command. It’s better for Kirby when his anger comes his usual contempt for hitters and, um, umpires.
Kirby failed to pitch six complete innings for the fifth time in his past six outings, giving up three homers on the evening, but still doing enough to get the win.
Meanwhile, Samuel Aldegheri, the first pitcher born and raised in Italy to step on a major league mound, could have had a much a different debut had Zach Neto made a play he makes 99 times out of 100.
It was an eventful first inning for the young lefty. His first pitch of his MLB career was hit by J.P. Crawford to center for a fly out. Aldegheri walked Julio Rodriguez and then got Cal Raleigh to fly out to center for the second out.
That third out wouldn’t come for eight more hitters.
Randy Arozarena looped a soft liner to left-center and somehow avoided being tagged out as he stretched into a double. The throw from left fielder Taylor Ward beat Arozarena to second, but he was able to slide around the tag from Brandon Drury.
It could have been the third out of the inning.
But when Jorge Polanco followed with a line drive to shortstop Neto, it should’ve been the third out of the inning. Neto took his eye off the ball slightly and hit off his glove and bounced into the outfield, allowing two runs to score.
It only got worse for Aldegheri. He hit Justin Turner and Dylan Moore with back-to-back pitches to load the bases.
Mitch Garver ripped a groundball past Anthony Rendon down the third-base line to drive in two more runs to make it 4-0. Victor Robles followed with a RBI single up the middle to make it 5-0.
When Aldegheri struck out Rodriguez to end the first inning, he’d thrown 34 pitches to 11 batters with all five runs being unearned.
To his credit, he regrouped and posted 1-2-3 innings in the second and third. His teammates even got two of the runs back in the bottom of the first off Kirby, Ward led off with a solo homer to right field and Neto manufactured a run, stealing second and third base and scoring on a sac fly after being hit with a pitch.
The Mariners got those two runs back in the fourth inning.
With Crawford on first base, Rodriguez smashed a fastball over the wall in left-center for his 13th homer of the season. It was the second straight game he had homered.
Aldegheri made it through five innings in his debut, giving up seven runs allowed, two earned, on six hits. He added two walks, two hit batters and three strikeouts.
Even with triple the run support that he normally receives, Kirby couldn’t make his outing any easier.
He gave up back-to-back homers to Mickey Moniak and Brandon Drury to start the fifth inning and couldn’t make it out of the sixth. He allowed a leadoff double to Nolan Schanuel, retired the next two batters and then walked Moniak to end his outing.
Manager Dan Wilson called on J.T. Chargois to clean up the mess. But Chargois immediately allowed an RBI single to Drury that was charged to Kirby and cut Settle’s lead 7-5.