Mariners get a much-needed win over Rays to end frustrating road trip

Rodriguez’s rare walk brought Cal Raleigh to the plate. He’s proven to be comfortable and capable in late-game situations where a big hit is needed.

Raleigh added to that resume. He refused to offer at a 1-1 sinker off the outside corner of the plate, taking it for a ball instead of rolling over for a groundout.

Up 2-1, Armstrong threw an inside cutter that wasn’t close. With the count worked to 3-1, Raleigh was looking fastball only. He got it — a 93-mph fastball on the inside half of the plate and lower part of the strike zone — the happy zone for left-handed swings.

Raleigh hammered it onto the concourse above the right-field seats for his team-high 14th homer of the season.

“He’s a tough pitcher because he has three different fastballs and they go different ways,” Raleigh said. “It’s tough to square those guys up. They may not strike out a lot of guys, they get a ton of weak contact off the barrel off the end or jam shots. So I was just trying to sit there in the middle to plate. Seeing it hit the walkway was pretty cool.”

Given a lead, Kirby came back out for the bottom of the sixth, dispatching the top of the Rays order — Diaz, Josh Lowe and Randy Arozarena — with cold efficiency to close out his outing. He pitched six innings, allowing the one run on four hits with no walks and seven strikeouts to improve to 7-5 on the season.

“In that situation, I’m just really trying to execute and get us back in the dugout as quick as possible and try to limit the long at-bats, especially with the top of the order,” Kirby said. “Just go right at them. If they are going to swing first pitch, sure, go right ahead. But I think it’s important to get us back in the dugout for the next inning quickly.”

Perhaps buoyed by the sixth-inning dinger from the Dumper, the Mariners added two runs in the seventh. Crawford dumped a two-run single into left-center to make it 5-1.

The Mariners made it interesting when Andres Munoz walked the bases loaded without recording an out, but Trent Thornton came in and finished it, allowing one run to score to record his first save.