Segura gives Mariners a lift past the Giants

SEATTLE With the Seattle Mariners struggling to find offence, Jean Segura wasn’t going to sit through a long at-bat looking for a perfect pitch. In this situation, the first one was good enough.

Segura chopped the first pitch from Sam Dyson into centre field to score Guillermo Heredia with the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, and the Mariners won yet another one-run game by beating the San Francisco Giants 3-2 on Wednesday.

Seattle came up with just enough offence to split the two-game interleague series, and it was one of the Mariners’ all-stars who came through. Heredia walked leading off the eighth inning against Tony Watson (3-4) and advanced to second on Dee Gordon’s bunt. Gordon was initially called safe but was out on a video review.

Dyson, who shut down the Mariners a night earlier, took over and was greeted by Segura’s chopper up the middle, and Heredia beat the throw home from Steven Duggar. Seattle improved to a leaguebest 27-12 in one-run games this season.

“I was just trying to get a sinker down and over the plate. He threw a perfect pitch to put a good swing on it,” Segura said.

Seattle is in the midst of an offensive swoon, scoring three runs or fewer in 11 of the past 14 games. Trying to rediscover the offence of May and June has been a struggle, both going into and coming out of the all-star break. Segura had a first-inning sacrifice fly and two of Seattle’s three RBIs. Ryon Healy added his 21st home run, a solo shot in the second inning.

“You go through these stretches during the course of the season. It’s tough,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “It’s not like these guys aren’t trying or trying to make adjustments. It’s just the ball games we’re playing in right now. We’ve got to get it going offensively.”