By Ryan Divish

The Seattle Times

CLEVELAND — Braden Bishop knew he would get his first major-league hit eventually, but it didn’t happen when Francisco Lindor made a brilliant diving stop on his hard ground ball in the first inning Sunday, then throwing him out by a few steps.

“I don’t like ground balls in the first place,” Bishop said of the play made by Lindor. “But any way I could get the hit, I’m hoping for it. But he made a really nice play, which isn’t surprising.”

A hint of doubt crept into his mind.

“Is this ever going to happen?”

The question was answered in his next plate appearances. Leading off the fourth, Bishop smoked a line drive up the middle away from the Indians’ All-Star shortstop for his first big-league hit.

“It more than made up for that nice play that Lindor made,” he said.

The ball from that first hit sat in his locker at Progressive Field. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.

“It will probably go to my dad’s house until I buy one and I will probably take it over to show my mom,” he said.

Bishop made the Mariners’ opening-day roster out of spring training, traveling to Japan and taking the place of the injured Mallex Smith. He got just one at-bat in two games in the Tokyo Dome and was optioned back to Tacoma before the home opener.

He was recalled from Tacoma last week to replace the slumping Smith and appeared in three games, starting two and going hitless in six plate appearances.

“You make it to the major leagues, but I feel like it’s more solidified by having a hit under you belt,” he said. “After I got the first one, I could just take a deep breath and get back to just playing and not really chasing results.”

For Bishop, the first hit signaled a milestone in the process of changing his swing. After being selected in the third round of the 2015 draft out of the University of Washington, he quickly realized that the choppy, ground ball swing he used with great success in the Pac-12 wasn’t going to work in professional baseball. So he went about retooling it, making incremental progress each season.

“It’s a lot of work that nobody sees,” Bishop said.

Aºnd after notching that first MLB hit in the fourth, he came back with first career RBI in the fifth, slicing a two-run single into right field.

“I was happy to put some swings on some balls today,” he said. “But to contribute to a win feels even better.”