Bronx, NY: Marvin Gonzalez was cruising along at Yankee Stadium Tuesday night. The Seattle Mariners 27-year old Left-hander gave up three hits, a walk, and a run. Then the rains came with one out in the seventh inning. After over an hour rain delay the night was over for Gonzalez.
He did not get the decision. The Mariners bullpen gave up the lead and the Yankees would go on and win this one 5-4 with a ninth inning DJ LeMahieu walk-off single. A season low in hits and allowing three earned runs or fewer in nine starts this season, but the rain spoiled him going longer with a pitch count of 89 that could have gave Gonzalez another inning.
Despite the Mariners’ loss. Gonzalez had that good outing. His last start against the White Sox, Gonzalez lasted an inning and a half. He gave up six runs and five hits.
After the walk-off loss and no-decision, Gonzalez was pleased. But no pitcher with a lead wants to leave a game because rain caused a disruption. He anticipated this start and hoped for a rebound.
“I’ve been thinking about this one for five days now,” he said. “I had some time to weigh how my last one went and I thought I corrected a lot of things I wanted to work on.They’re a very aggressive team so I wanted to locate the offspeed early and get ahead and get them off balance, and I think we did a good job of that.”
Last season, he finished 13-9 with a 4.00 ERA. The wins were most for a Mariners left-hander since the 14 that Jason Vargas achieved in 2014.
Gonzalez is 2-0 on the road this season with a 3.24 ERA in four quality starts.Before the los to Chicago he had a career high six-game winning streak and is the first pitcher in Mariners history to record five wins before the calendar turned to May.
Two other Mariner starters, Felix Hernandez and Michael Pineda have earned four wins before the month of May. It was his second career start for Gonzalez against the Yankees, acquired by Seattle from the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for a minor league outfielder two years ago.
More importantly, if the Mariners expect to contend, they need these quality starts from Gonzalez.Again, despite the outcome, the changeup had Yankees’ hitters off balance with a nice curve and he got the fastball where he wanted it to go.
NOTES: Edwin Encarnacion, 1-for-3 hit his 11th home run of the season in the sixth inning and is tied for the team lead with Jay Bruce and has three in the last four games…
Yankees Gio Urshela, 2-for-4 hit the game tying home run with one out in the ninth inning. It was his first career game-tying hit in the ninth inning. He has two career tie-breaking go-ahead hits in extra innings…
Yankees Gleber Torres, 2-for-4, with singles in the seventh and ninth extended his career best 12-game hitting streak.
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