Ketel Marte’s tiebreaking RBI double with two outs in the eighth inning gave the Arizona Diamondbacks a 3-2 comeback victory against the host Seattle Mariners on Sunday afternoon.
Christian Walker had a double and homer for the Diamondbacks, who snapped a three-game skid. Four of Arizona’s six hits went for extra bases.
Josh Rojas homered for the American League West-leading Mariners, who had won three in a row.
With the score tied at 2-2, Arizona’s Kevin Newman drew a leadoff walk in the eighth off reliever Trent Thornton (0-1). Jake McCarthy’s sacrifice bunt sent Newman to second and Marte lined a two-out double off the wall in right field to break the deadlock.
Reliever Joe Mantiply (2-1) tossed a scoreless inning and got the victory and Kevin Ginkel earned his fifth save with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Arizona’s Brandon Pfaadt and Seattle’s Logan Gilbert posted quality starts, but neither factored into the decision.
Pfaadt pitched six innings and allowed two runs on five hits, with no walks and 11 strikeouts. Gilbert went 6 1/ 3 innings and gave up two runs on four hits, with one walk and nine strikeouts.
Rojas led off the bottom of the first by clearing the fence just inside the right field foul pole, the second time he accomplished the feat in the three-game series against his former team.
Walker tied it leading off the second with a long drive to left-center.
The Mariners regained the lead in the third. Leo Rivas led off and tripled into the right field corner in his first major league at-bat. After Rojas reached on catcher’s interference against Tucker Barnhart, Julio Rodriguez singled to center field, scoring Rivas. Jorge Polanco loaded the bases with no outs on an infield single, but Pfaadt got Ty France to fly out to shallow left field and Mitch Garver to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Polanco ended up being the last Mariner to reach base, as their final 20 batters were retired in order.
