SAN DIEGO – Cal Raleigh hit a sky-scraping home run to give the Mariners the lead in the seventh inning, and Seattle’s pitching staff shut down the San Diego Padres for the second game in a row in a 4-1 victory Saturday night at Petco Park.
Raleigh ambushed the first pitch thrown by Padres lefty reliever Adrian Morejon in the seventh inning, a 93-mph cutter in the middle of the plate, and pulled it 398 feet out to left field to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead.
It was Raleigh’s 15th homer of the season – his second in as many nights – putting him one behind Shohei Ohtani for the MLB lead and sending the Mariners (25-19) to an impressive series victory over a Padres team with one of the best home records in baseball.
Dylan Moore gave the Mariners two key insurance runs in the top of the ninth inning with a sharp single with the bases loaded, driving in Raleigh and Randy Arozarena to make it 4-1.
The Mariners will try for the series sweep Sunday with emerging ace Bryan Woo (4-1, 2.84 ERA) on the mound. The Padres will turn to their ace, Michael King (4-1, 2.32), to try avoid the sweep.
Rowdy Tellez also hit his second homer in as many days, a solo blast to tie the score at 1 in the fifth, and Andrés Muñoz recorded his first four-out save of the season to close it out.
Left-hander Gabe Speier, pitching in a steady rain, struck out Jackson Merrill swinging through an elevated 96-mph fastball to end the fifth inning and strand the bases loaded. Speier then stranded to go-ahead run at third base to end the sixth inning.
Matt Brash pitched a perfect seventh inning, and Casey Legumina got the first two outs of the eighth inning before allowing an opposite-field single to Xander Bogaerts.
That prompted manager Dan Wilson to call on Muñoz for his first appearance before the ninth inning this season.
Muñoz got Gavin Sheets to ground out softly, stranding Bogaerts at second.
Muñoz then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his 14th save.
The Padres were 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position. They were 0 for 7 with RISP in the Mariners’ 5-1 victory Friday night.
Mariners starter Emerson Hancock, in one of the best starts of his young career, allowed only a solo homer to Sheets in 4 ⅔ innings.
Prospect watch
Cole Young was 3 for 7 with a double, a triple and a home run and four RBIs in the Tacoma Rainiers’ 15-14 road loss to the Albuquerque Isotopes on Friday night. Young’s home run was measured at 458 feet, and it was his seventh multihit game over a torrid 12-game stretch. In those 12 games, he had a slash line of .426/.509/.872 (1.381 OPS), with 20 hits, five doubles, two triples, four homers, 17 runs, 12 RBIs, six walks, five strikeouts and a stolen base. The 21-year-old shortstop/second baseman, the reigning Pacific Coast League Player of the Week, is one of the youngest players in Triple-A.