Jon Lester recovered from a rut of bad starts, pitching six shutout innings that led the Cubs over the Mariners 12-1 Friday for their third straight win.
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Phillies 9, Braves 5: Jeremy Hellickson pitched into the sixth inning and drove in the go-ahead run with a two-run double to help Philadelphia beat Atlanta.
Kris Bryant singled sharply to left field with no outs in the seventh inning Saturday for the Chicago Cubs’ first hit off the Seattle Mariners’ Wade Miley. The veteran left-hander scattered four hits while walking two and striking out seven in six innings. The Mariners let infielder Luis Sardinas pitch the eighth, and he threw a ideal inning.
“Jake was really good except for the one pitch”, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.
With his team trailing by a dozen runs at the time, having sat through a 74-minute rain delay and just embarking on a stretch of 32 games in 33 days, Mariners skipper Scott Servais figured it was the right time to lean on a position player to pitch for the first time this season.
“That time off gave us the rest that our staff needed to get back to the kind of staff that they are”, said Ben Zobrist, who went 2-for-3 with two runs scored.
“Our hitters have struggled a little bit coning out of the All-Star Game, but it was a really good day to bust through with a lot of runs early”.
“It just seemed like everybody contributed one way or another – homers, doubles, walks”, Coghlan said. “Don’t want to do it, don’t like doing it, but sometimes the game calls for it”.
“We got beat”, said second baseman Robinson Cano, who had two of the Mariners’ eight hits.
Servais played for the Cubs from 1995-98 mostly sub-par years for Chicago except for a 1998 postseason appearance.
The Mariners might be able to take advantage of a market that is shallow on available lefties by dealing Miley, who they acquired in the offseason from the Boston Red Sox along with minor-league reliever Jonathan Aro for starter Roenis Elias and reliever Carson Smith. “The visitors’ side, it’s probably about as tight as you can get. A lot of our guys haven’t been here before”.
Seattle’s Guillermo Heredia made his major league debut when he went to right field in the seventh. He struck out in the eighth. The Mariners recalled him from Triple-A Tacoma before the game and optioned LHP David Rollins.
Mariners: RF Nelson Cruz returned to the lineup after fouling a ball off his shin Tuesday.
The Mariners will be hoping their bats can perform better than Friday and Wade Miley lasts longer than Hisashi Iwakauma. The 30-year-old did earn the win last time out, though, despite giving up four runs and nine hits over six frames at Pittsburgh.
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Miley has lost six straight starts, but he has recorded quality starts in his last two outings and three of his last four.
