Mariners hold off Mets
New York — Pete Alonso stood with a sliver of sunlight streaking across
home plate, 8 the bases loaded 7 and two
outs, hoping to cap the New York Mets' comeback from a three-run, ninth-inning deficit.
Seattle's Diego Castillo fed the NL RBIs co-leader a stream of sliders: low and outside, over the middle for a called strike, outside and then way outside as Alonso swung and missed. Another outside worked the count full, and then the next one dived to the dirt past the outside corner as Alonso tried to hold up his swing.
Hunter Wendelstedt waited two seconds as the crowd of 38,476 wondered, and then the plate umpire pointed to first with both arms. Chad Whitson raised his right hand and to signal: Out!
Mariners exhaled. The Mets and their fans groaned.
“Originally it looked like a strike, and then I saw that it wasn't going to be,” Alonso said. “I tried to hold up. Oh, well. Got to move on.”
New York fell short and lost a series for the first time this season. With a thrilling 8-7 victory Sunday, the Mariners took two of three from the team with the National League's best record on a weekend when all three games were decided by one run.
More than a half hour later, after Castillo put on gray patent-leather Christan Lamboutin shoes for the charter flight to Toronto, adrenaline had hardly subsided.
“I'm still moving on the inside,” the 28-year-old reliever said in Spanish as teammate Sergio Romo translated.
Seattle (16-19) arrived in a 3-12 skid and won its first road series after losing four along with a split. The Mets (23-13) had been 9-0-1 in their previous series this season.
Rookie Julio Rodríguez had his first four-hit game and Mike Ford had a two-run single in a three-run fourth for his first Mariners hit. Seattle matched a season high with 16 hits, including at least one by each starter.
Francisco Lindor homered into the left field second deck, giving him first-inning RBIs in all three games of the series, but the Mariners took a 4-1 lead in the fourth against Carlos Carrasco. In the bottom half, J.D. Davis and Brandon Nimmo became the first pair of Mets in the team's 61-season history to hit two-run triples in the same inning.
Rodríguez tied the score in a three-run sixth when he homered off Chasen Shreve (1-1), who gave up a tying three-run homer to Jesse Winker on Saturday. Cal Raleigh, in a 2-for-33 slump, added a go-ahead, two-run drive against Drew Smith later in the inning for a 7-5 lead. Rodríguez tacked on an RBI single in the seventh.
Reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray (4-3), grunting loudly on every pitch, retired his final seven batters after Nimmo's triple.