SEATTLE — Here again, the Mariners showed Saturday afternoon why they remain a threat to mount a postseason push over the season’s final two months after four months of tedium.
They are resilient.
Seattle scratched out and hung on for a 3-2 victory over the New York Mets against an in-form Jacob deGrom roughly 14 hours after letting a victory slip away Friday night in the series opener.
“You’ve just got to grind,” said center fielder Jarrod Dyson, who had a two-run single in the second inning. “That’s just baseball, period. Every game is going to be a grind.”
Veteran right-hander Yovani Gallardo (5-7) outpitched deGrom (12-4) before the Mariner bullpen survived some shaky moments in closing out the victory — a victory that came at a cost.
Right fielder Mitch Haniger was hit in the face by a deGrom fastball in the second inning. Haniger left the game under his own power but will likely require plastic surgery to repair lacerations on his face.
“He’s got no fractures,” manager Scott Servais said. “His teeth are OK, but he got a pretty severe laceration in his upper lip. It could have been a lot worse.”
The Mariners are expected to place Haniger on the disabled list prior to Sunday’s series finale and make a corresponding roster move to replace him on the roster.
“He’ll be out a little while,” Servais said. “We’ll let him heal up. He’ll be back.”
The Mariners (52-53) scored three early runs, aided by a costly error, before deGrom went into lockdown mode. Dyson’s two-run single in the second inning was a blooper that fell in short center field.
The Mariners capitalized on a throwing error by Mets second baseman Neil Walker for another run in the third inning. Nelson Cruz’s sacrifice fly made it 3-0.
DeGrom permitted just one walk over his final 12 hitters and struck out 10 in his six innings.
Gallardo carried that 3-0 lead into the sixth before exiting after giving up a pair of two-out singles. Tony Zych forced in a run with two walks before ending the inning.
Marc Rzepczynski then worked around a two-on, no-out jam in a scoreless seventh. Nick Vincent blew through the Mets in the eighth inning before Edwin Diaz gave up one run in the ninth before securing his 19th save.
