It seems all the sputtering Seattle Mariners needed was to get Victor Robles back in the lineup.
Robles returned from a seven-game suspension Saturday for throwing his bat at a pitcher during a rehabilitation game in the minor leagues and immediately sparked the Mariners’ offense.
After scoring just 23 runs in losing six of the first seven contests on their nine-game trip, the Mariners exploded for 28 runs on 31 hits over the weekend in a pair of lopsided victories at Atlanta.
The Mariners (75-68) hope that continues when they return home Monday to open a three-game interleague series with the St. Louis Cardinals (72-72).
“He brings the energy, no question about it,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said of Robles. “It’s great to see him here. I love having him back … the way he approaches the game with all the hustle, it just energizes people around him. He invigorates them a little bit. Hopefully he does that for our lineup.”
The Mariners slugged five home runs in a 10-2 victory Saturday, then matched that total in an 18-2 rout Sunday.
Cal Raleigh homered in both games, giving him an MLB-leading 53. It also pulled him within one homer of tying Mickey Mantle’s record for most by a switch hitter in a season.
“It’s just about keeping your head down,” Raleigh said. “But at some point, you just say, ‘screw it,’ and go out and play like we have been all year. It’s the mentality you’ve got to take, where you say, ‘No one cares. Game is over. Move on.’ You need to just keep playing loose, keep playing free, keep stealing bags, keep diving for balls, keep swinging hard and it’s gonna turn eventually.”
Teammate Eugenio Suarez, who hit four homers in a game against Atlanta earlier this season while with the Arizona Diamondbacks, went deep twice Sunday.
“That’s the lineup that you want to see,” Suarez said through an interpreter. “We all know that we have a really good lineup and the last two games it showed up. We did our best. And that’s the team that we all know that we have.”
The Mariners took two of three in Atlanta to win their first road series since the All-Star break. They are 2 1/2 games behind Houston in the American League West and 1 1/2 games ahead of Texas for the AL’s third and final wild-card berth.
The Cardinals are 17 games back of Milwaukee in the National League Central but are 4 1/2 games out of the wild-card race.
St. Louis has won two in a row and four of its past five games, including a 4-3 decision Sunday against visiting San Francisco as Sonny Gray took a no-hitter into the sixth inning.
Eight-time All-Star Nolan Arenado was back in the Cardinals’ clubhouse this weekend, but only for a brief stop on his way to Double-A Springfield to rehabilitate a shoulder injury. He hopes to rejoin the big-league club Sept. 15.
“I’ve just got to get out there, show who I am, show that I’m healthy and start hitting the ball hard again,” Arenado said. “Those are the things that I’m going to have to do and those are the things that I’m really focused on doing.”
Monday’s series opener at T-Mobile Park is scheduled to feature a pair of right-handers in St. Louis’ Miles Mikolas (7-10, 4.89 ERA) against Seattle’s Bryan Woo (12-7, 3.02).
Mikolas snapped a three-game skid by beating the visiting Athletics 2-1 Tuesday as he allowed one run on five hits over six innings. He’s 1-1 with a 5.28 ERA in three career starts against Seattle.
Woo went six-plus innings in each of his first 25 starts before failing to reach that mark in his past two outings. He gave up three runs on four hits in five innings Tuesday but didn’t get a decision in a game the Mariners lost 6-5 in Tampa Bay. This will be Woo’s first appearance against the Cardinals.
–Field Level Media
