If the White Sox's game plan was to not let Cal Raleigh beat them, then mission accomplished: The co-favorite for American League MVP finished 0-for-5 with three strikeouts.
If only it were so simple. It turns out the Mariners have a number of guys who can beat the White Sox, and the newly acquired Josh Naylor takes particular pleasure in it.
Naylor hit one of three Mariners homers on the night, but his leadoff walk in the top of the sixth set the wheels in motion -- Naylor's included -- for a three-run inning that allowed Seattle to run away with the series opener.
The Mariners led 3-1 on the strength of a couple homers when Martin opened the sixth with a four-pitch walk to Naylor, but the trouble was only starting. Naylor had Martin timed, which he used to steal second during Eugenio Suárez's plate appearance. It also came in handy while on second, because once Martin looked him back, Naylor took off for third and recorded the front end of an unlikely double steal without a throw. That brought the infield in, and Jorge Polanco swatted a single through the real estate to give the Mariners the necessary margin, although Tyler Gilbert gave up an inherited run when a wild pitch moved Polanco to second, allowing him to make it home on a couple of productive groundouts.
Naylor then marred Bryan Hudson's White Sox debut with a two-run shot in the seventh that put the game from "out of reach" to "out of hand."
The way the game got away might've been ugly, but there was an air of inevitability to it -- partially because every inning Martin threw had some degree of danger to it, and partially because Bryan Woo suppressed the White Sox offense.
Martin escaped the first because Julio Rodríguez senselessly ran into the third out at third base on a pitch he thought was in the dirt. Dominic Canzone smoked a middle-middle fastball out to right field to tie the game at 1 in the second, and then Colson Montgomery turned a 103-mph one-hopper from Raleigh into a 6-3 double play in the third inning, even though he had to back up on it to absorb the bounce.
Naylor then opened the fourth inning with a 107.5 mph grounder that ate up Josh Rojas, and then Suárez rocked a rolling cutter well out to left for his first homer in his return to Seattle, and even a scoreless fifth inning started with a 108-mph single and two balls to the right field warning track.
Meanwhile, Bryan Woo gave up a surprise solo shot to Lenyn Sosa two batters in, but that only made him angry. He allowed up a two-out double to Kyle Teel in the second inning, then nothing else over the remainder of his seven innings. He struck out nine while using just 83 pitches, and finished his evening by retiring the last 16 batters he faced.
While the White Sox couldn't figure out Woo's four-seam fastball, they looked primed to see anybody else. When Casey Legumina relieved Woo to open the eighth, Edgar Quero greeted him with a double, and the Sox eventually loaded the bases on a pair of two-out walks before Sosa popped out.
And against Jackson Kowar in the ninth, the White Sox rewarded those who were still watching. Luis Robert Jr. took 98 mph out to right field for his 100th career homer, and then Colson Montgomery made it back-to-back in emphatic fashion, scalding a hanging 1-2 slider off the facing of a restaurant in right field. Montgomery now has eight homers over his last 12 games, and while this one came in garbage time, there's no such thing for a rookie.
Bullet points:
*Martin actually generated 17 whiffs over 93 pitches, but the mistakes he made, both on the home run balls and with letting the running game overwhelm him, defined his evening.
*It was weird to see rain in a Seattle baseball game, but the skies opened up after Sosa's popout in the eighth, and Mike Vasil had to pitch through a downpour until the roof closed.
*Curtis Mead made his White Sox debut in the ninth by pinch-hitting for Andrew Benintendi. He flied out to the right field warning track on a fastball over the middle of the plate at the knees.
