By Ryan Divish
The Seattle Times
CHICAGO — At some point, this homer-bashing, pitch-count destroying, run-scoring fiesta of an offense has to regress to a mean of some sort, right?
Eventually, the Mariners have to return to some sort of normalcy, right?
The logic of baseball, laws of average and the disruptive nature of injuries, say, “Yes.”
But it’s unlikely that any decline will result in the Mariners returning to the free-swinging, strikeout-prone run-challenged offenses of past years. The oft-preached, but not always followed, mantra of “Control The Zone” seems to have finally taken effect, and the results, well, they have been better than expected 11 games into 2019 season.
The pummeling continued Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field with a 12-5 drubbing of the White Sox in a game that was played under the threat of heavy rain and still managed to take nearly four hours.
The Mariners improved to 9-2, which is the best start in franchise history. They won their fourth series of the season and head to Kansas City for four games at Kaufman Stadium to complete the road trip.
“We strung together some really good at-bats,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “It’s up and down the lineup. It was a really good series for us offensively. I can’t say enough about how our offense is just clicking right now and how we are grinding through. We are beating down on (opponents) pitching by making them throw so many pitches.”
The Mariners bashed three homers Sunday, including two from Daniel Vogelbach, to give them a home run in all 11 games. They’ve scored in double digits in three games and have scored five runs or fewer just once.
In 11 games, they’ve hit 27 homers, drawn 50 walks and scored 85 runs. They are averaging 7.7 runs a game. A year ago, they had just 11 homers, 36 walks and 51 runs in their first 11 games.
The 27 home runs in 11 games is the most by a team since the 2000 Cardinals, who has 29 in 11 games. They are just the sixth team in the expansion era (1961 to present) to score at least 85 runs in their first 11 games. The last team to do so was the 1999 Cleveland Indians with 90 runs.
“It’s just going up there and grinding at-bats out ,” Vogelbach said. “We got off to a slow start. But you never know with this team. We are always just one inning and one good at-bat away.”
Seattle hitters turned their at-bats against Chicago starter Ivan Nova into pitch-filled battles, grinding the pace of play down in the first three innings. Nova didn’t make it out of the third inning as the Mariners scored six runs. He gave up three consecutive run-scoring singles Domingo Santana, Edwin Encarnacion and Omar Narvaez. Later with the bases loaded, Nova left a 1-1 change-up over the plate that Vogelbach hammered into the gap in right-center for a double to clear the bases. It ended Nova’s outing after 2 1/3 innings. He threw 72 pitches to the 16 batters he faced, allowing seven runs on seven hits with a walk and two strikeouts.
“It was a great at-bat by (Tim) Beckham before me — he got down and battled back and took a walk,” Vogelbach said. “I was just trying to get something elevated and hit it in the air and get a run. I was able to find a barrel, find a gap and get them all in.”
The top of the third inning took 37 minutes to play, leaving Seattle starter Wade LeBlanc to sit, wait and watch his run support build. Seattle has scored 10-plus runs in two of LeBlanc’s starts.
“I have no problem getting used to long half-innings where I’m sitting there watching runs cross the plate,” he said.
But he also watched what his current teammates did to his former teammate with the Pirates.
“I played with Nova,” LeBlanc said. “Two years ago, he averaged like 12-pitch innings. What we did is not easy to do against a guy like that with a really good sinker and a breaking ball like he has. He’s not the kind of guy to throw 25 pitches in an inning and these guys still did it to him. They’ve been doing it all year.”
It leads to frustration and confusion for a pitcher when they can’t make it stop.
“You can definitely feel it,” LeBlanc said. “You are like, ‘Man, I’ve been out here for a while.’ When they start spoiling pitches and laying off what you think are good pitches, you start asking yourself, ‘Is my stuff working today? And you start thinking it. It can play mind games with you for sure.”
LeBlanc allowed a run in the bottom of third that cut Seattle’s lead to 7-2, but the Mariners then went into homer-hitting mode to add to their lead.
Encarnacion’s 112-mph line drive had just enough height to clear the wall for a two-run homer in the fourth to make it 9-2. Vogelbach hit his third homer of the season in the fifth, launching a two-run blast past right field that made it 11-2. He’s homered in each of the past three games he’s started.
While the rain loomed, LeBlanc made sure it became an official game, getting the Mariners through five full innings. He worked six innings, giving up two runs on six hits with a walk and six strikeouts to improve to 2-0.
“It’s about starting pitching and I thought he did a nice job,” Servais said. “He doesn’t get over 100 pitches too often, but we had a little cushion today so we let him go. He pitched really well the last couple of innings with the lead.”
The Mariners’ bullpen was a little shaky in mop-up duty. Matt Festa struggled in the seventh, allowing three runs.
In the ninth, Vogelbach crushed another ball into the right-field seats. The six RBI were a career high.
“We’ve got a good thing going offensively right now,” Servais said. “We are playing good ball. Guys are enjoying it and having fun, which is great. We’ll go to Kansas City and see what happens there.”
