On Sunday he had his first career home run. On Monday, for an encore, he had his first career walk-off hit.
Alex Guerrero was the hero for the second consecutive game as the Cuban infielder capped off the Dodgers comeback with a two-out, bases loaded single in the 10th inning to beat the Seattle Mariners 6-5. It was the first interleague game of the 2015 season for both teams.
“I had two strikes against me, so I wasn’t looking for a home run there, I was just looking to make contact,” said Guerrero through an interpreter.
Yasiel Puig homered for the second consecutive day as the Dodgers rallied from a four-run deficit in the fourth inning. Puig appears to have burst out of an early season slump as he went 3 for 5 on the night.
Brandon McCarthy who admitted he was not a ground ball pitcher after his first outing last week against the Padres, gave up four home runs, to bring his season total to six.
“My job is to always be around the plate as much as I can and attack the hitters,” McCarthy said after the game. “I know from time to time that sometimes you’re going to miss your spot and somebody’s going to drive a ball. You just hope it does minimal damage and doesn’t come in a grouping like this.”
Despite giving up the long ball, McCarthy surrendered five runs on six hits in seven innings and struck out ten batters in the no-decision.
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It was feast or famine for McCarthy, as he became just the 11th pitcher since 1914 to give up as many as four home runs in a game and still strikeout at least 10 batters. He is the first pitcher to accomplish such a feat since the Milwaukee Brewers Mike Fiers did it on Sept. 30, 2012.
“I didn’t feel like I pitched terrible,” added McCarthy. “But balls just kept leaving the yard. They’re an extremely aggressive team, and anything that gets left out they’re going to hit.”
Nelson Cruz hit two homers in the game, a two-run blast in the first, and a solo shot to right field in the fourth inning.
Kyle Seager, the older brother of Dodgers’ top prospect, Corey Seager, followed Cruz with a solo shot of his own for the first back-to-back homers of Seattle’s season.
The Mariners were up 4-0 before Guerrero hit a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to get LA on the board in the bottom half of the inning. Joc Pederson followed up his first major league home run on Sunday with a two-run RBI to cut the lead to 4-3.
Dustin Ackley homered off McCarthy in the fifth inning to stretch the Mariners lead to 5-3.
The Dodgers would tie the game in the bottom half of the fifth after Puig’s first-pitch homer cut the gap to one. NL Player of the Week, Adrian Gonzalez, followed with a double and Howie Kendrick knocked him in with an RBI single off Seattle’s starter James Paxton.
“I made mistakes, left some balls up there out over the plate and they capitalized on them,” said Paxton of his performance.
Paxton gave up five runs on six hits over 6 1/3 innings. He walked two while striking out six.
With the game knotted at five apiece, the two teams’ bullpens kept the game scoreless for the next four innings.
Dominic Leone (0-1) pitched two of those innings before giving up a leadoff double to Andre Ethier in the bottom of the 10th inning. After back-to-back walks to Gonzalez and Kendrick, Tyler Olson came in and yielded the game-winning single to Guerrero.
Yimi Garcia (1-0) picked up his first major league victory by pitching a perfect 10th inning for Los Angeles.
Game Notes:
The Mariners were playing in their third consecutive extra innings game after previous wins against the Oakland Athletics on Saturday and Sunday. Seattle pitcher Tom Wilhelmsen was placed on the 15-day disabled list before the game. Alex Guerrero was making his second career start at third base after Justin Turner and Juan Uribe were injured on consecutive plays on Saturday.
