By Ryan Divish
The Seattle Times
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — He had to stand and wait out a replay delay of just under two minutes to verify that the final out of his outing was official.
But when Erasmo Ramirez was finally able to walk off the mound at Tropicana Field following six innings of solid pitching, he did something that hasn’t happened enough for the Mariners this season — deliver a quality outing of more than five innings.
Facing the team that he started the season with, Ramirez allowed just one run on two hits over six innings to lead the Mariners to a 7-1 win over the Rays on Friday night.
Seattle moved back over .500 at 62-61 with a 20-9 record in its last 29 games away from Safeco Field. The Mariners have 11 more games in 12 days on the road trip.
Ramirez’s start was just the 56th time in 123 games that a Mariners’ starting pitcher delivered six complete innings of work in an outing. It was just the 25th time that a Mariners starter had pitched at least six complete innings while allowing one run or less.
Ramirez was the last starter to do both, pitching six innings and allowing one run on three hits against the Angels. It was a game the Mariners would lose thanks to a bullpen meltdown from Casey Lawrence and Tony Zych.
But on this occasion, the Mariners had provided more than enough run support to allow a rested bullpen to work without trepidation. Seattle banged out 14 hits and improved to 57-19 in games where it scores four or more runs.
James Pazos gave the Mariners 21/3 innings of shutout relief work while Emilio Pagan notched the final two outs.
Seattle jumped on Tampa starter Austin Pruitt, scoring three runs in the first inning. Nelson Cruz hammered an RBI double to center, and Kyle Seager and Danny Valencia each drove in runs.
Mike Zunino tacked on two more runs in the fourth inning with a display of his strength.
With runners on second and third and one out, Zunino got behind in the count 1-2. Not wanting to strike out, he made a lunging swing on a breaking ball that spun low and away out of the strike zone. He was able to get the barrel to the ball and make decent contact. For most hitters, it might’ve been a fly ball to right or even a soft liner. Zunino’s swing produced a ball that hit off the wall in deep right-center.
Seattle added another run in the fifth on an RBI single from Ben Gamel, who had two hits, to make it 7-1.
But the most memorable run of the night came in the top of the ninth. Facing right-hander Brad Boxberger, Cruz crushed a 0-1 fastball deep into the upper deck in left field. For about the fifth time in the MLB Statcast era, Cruz hit a ball so far and hard that it didn’t register in the parameters of the advanced measuring system.
MLB later issued a distance on the homer that credited Statcast with measuring it at 482 feet, which would make it the longest homer in Tropicana Field history.
