The AL West-leading Seattle Mariners have won a lot of series this year, but as Seattle Sports’ Brock Huard put it Monday morning, it’s “hard to argue” that their three-game sweep of the San Diego Padres over the weekend wasn’t their best series so far.
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The M’s won 5-1 on Friday, 4-1 on Saturday and 6-1 on Sunday, and they never flinched even when they had to come back from initial one-run deficits in each of the last two games.
Huard’s co-host on Brock and Salk, Mike Salk, had a pretty simple way Monday morning of explaining why things went so smoothly for the Mariners in San Diego.
“What happens week to week and game to game in a baseball season isn’t always telling the full picture, but when you play like that, you’re as good as anybody,” Salk said. “Honestly, because the pitching was so good, the defense was so good, and the hitting is – look, they scored 15 runs in a series. That’s five a game.”
Salk said it wasn’t like the Mariners “just went in and teed off” against the Padres, but they “scored the right amount” – especially for a series where the opponent crossed home plate just once per game.
“Score five runs in a game and you’re probably gonna win. Give up one run in a game, you’re probably gonna win. And when you do both of those things, obviously, you win every game,” Salk said. “Pretty nice.”
Picking up the slack
For Huard, seeing Randy Arozarena have a big game Sunday made him think about how the Mariners haven’t had to rely solely on one or two players to keep their offense going this year.
“We’re nearing 50 games here, and enough guys are kind of doing enough work that sitting here in first place in the American League West does not feel very surprising based on contributions,” he said.
Salk expanded on that, pointing out that Jorge Polanco, who has been Seattle’s best hitter when in the lineup this season, had a quiet weekend. Polanco went 2 for 10 with a walk, no runs scored and no RBIs against the Padres, and the Mariners still swept.
“Polanco wasn’t really a part of it… but it didn’t seem to affect them,” Salk said. “Like, he was the guy that was sort of your red-hot offensive player who was well over his skis for a while. He came back to Earth… but it didn’t slow them down.
“No, that’s fine. (Rowdy) Tellez will just hit a couple home runs. Oh, that’s fine. Just put in (Leo) Rivas and he’ll make a couple of defensive plays at second. Oh, that’s fine. Dylan Moore late in the game will come up with a big hit.”
The Mariners open a three-game series in Chicago against the White Sox at 4:40 p.m. Monday, with radio coverage on Seattle Sports beginning at 3:30 with the pregame show.
More on the Seattle Mariners
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• Three best things we’re seeing from Mariners after sweep over Padres
• Dodgers release Chris Taylor, who became All-Star after trade from M’s
• How Mariners All-Star starter George Kirby fared in third rehab start
• Raleigh shares the impact made by Seattle Mariners hitting coaches
