Late rally, Lee's three RBIs lead Mariners past Reds

May 21st, 2016

CINCINNATI -- The Reds' bullpen squandered another early lead, leading to an 8-3 Mariners win at Great American Ball Park on Friday night. Cincinnati had a 3-0 lead before Seattle scored eight unanswered runs -- seven of them coming against relievers in the final three innings.
After escaping some trouble and throwing nearly 50 pitches in his first two innings, Reds starter Dan Straily settled down, allowing one run on two hits -- both courtesy of Kyle Seager, who went 2-for-4 with an RBI -- over his final four innings. However, the early trouble left him at 110 pitches after six, meaning he had to hand the game over to the troubled 'pen for the seventh.
• Straily solid, but bullpen unravels in loss

Blake Wood took over and faced four batters without recording an out. He loaded the bases after two leadoff singles to Leonys Martin and Norichika Aoki and walked in a run before Tony Cingrani took over. Cingrani hit Robinson Cano with his first pitch and gave up a two-out, two-run go-ahead single to pinch-hitter Dae-Ho Lee, giving the Mariners a four-run rally on just three hits.
• Lee comes off bench to lift Mariners past Reds

"Obviously, today was a nightmare," said Wood, who saw his ERA jump from 3.10 to 4.87. "Ultimately, it's one game. I cost us the game, but I've got to move on. We've all got to move on. It's just the nature of the game. We're going to play a game tomorrow. I just have to try to get back in that frame of mind I was in before tonight."
• Wood comes undone as Reds' 'pen struggles

"It was a little slow-going offensively. We didn't get much going off of Straily early on, but we hung in there," Mariners manager Scott Servais said. "A few hits, walks, a hit-by-pitch and a big pinch-hit by Dae-Ho Lee. Awesome."
Seattle was anchored by a quality start from Hisashi Iwakuma, who went six innings and gave up three runs on six hits with six strikeouts, and then a shutout performance from the bullpen. The Mariners picked up a pair of late insurance runs in the ninth inning on a pair of solo home runs by Nelson Cruz and Lee against Jumbo Diaz.

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Buckling down: Iwakuma and the Mariners were trailing 3-0 in the fourth inning with the Reds threatening for more runs, but Iwakuma was able to strand the bases loaded. After retiring Jay Bruce to begin the inning, Iwakuma walked Eugenio Suarez and then gave up back-to-back singles to Adam Duvall and Tucker Barnhart. Straily's sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third base. Iwakuma walked Zack Cozart intentionally to bring up Billy Hamilton. Hamilton lined Iwakuma's 1-2 pitch to center field, but it hung up for Martin to make the catch and end the inning.
"Just keep the ball down, make him put the ball in play, and it worked out well," Iwakuma said of facing Hamilton. "I was fighting my command early on. I was going side to side instead of top to bottom, and that gave me a hard time commanding the ball down in the zone but I was able to make the adjustment towards the end and it paid off."
Straily battles: Continuing the trend from his last start, Straily managed to get himself into trouble and work his way around it. Straily needed 19 pitches to get through the first inning, and then in the second, he issued a leadoff walk to Seager, followed by a single to Adam Lind. He managed to strike out two of the next three batters and force Ketel Marte to ground out and end the inning. Even after settling down, Straily put on the leadoff batter in each of his final three innings.
• Cano's pair of HBP lead to crucial runs

Take two for the team: Cano had been hit by a pitch just once in his first 34 games of the season. He doubled that Friday night, and both were key in the Mariners' comeback. Straily hit Cano to lead off the sixth inning, and two batters out later, he scored Seattle's first run of the game on a double to the right-field corner by Seager. In the seventh inning, with the bases loaded, nobody out and the Mariners down one, Cano drove in the tying run when Cingrani hit him with the first pitch he threw after relieving Wood. Cano has 10 career grand slams, but the Reds didn't give him a shot at No. 11.

Cozart goes deep: Cozart hit his fifth home run of the season in the third inning, giving the Reds a 3-0 lead. While the home run marked Cozart's fifth of the season, all five have come in his last 22 games. Cozart is hitting .299 over that span with 12 RBIs.

QUOTABLE
"I was waiting for a fastball, and it was a fastball, so I hit it." -- Lee, on his two-run, go-ahead pinch-hit single in the seventh inning
"I've got nothing for Tony Cingrani except an appreciation. He came in, threw him a backed up slider, hit Cano, certainly not what he wanted to do. He comes into not an impossible situation, but a very difficult one and tried to maintain the lead there. I felt like if we could get out of there in a tie game, even with one down, he really would have done it. It would have been a nice job. It ends up he ties the game after the first pitch, but has two big hitters in Cruz and Seager and makes great pitches. And then Lee does a nice job staying on a fastball out over the plate and shooting it to right." -- Reds manager Bryan Price, on his bullpen's struggles
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
In the sixth inning, Hamilton made a spectacular diving catch deep in the gap near the warning track in left-center field. Hamilton ranked third among all outfielders coming into Friday's game in Fangraphs' range runs with 4.7, the number of runs above replacement a player is based on the amount of ground covered.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW
The Mariners challenged an out call at the plate against Cano in the seventh inning but the replay officials confirmed the call that there was no violation of the Home Plate Collision Rule. Cano was called out on a caught stealing, 1-3-6-2, on a play that began with Cingrani catching Lee straying too far off first base.
WHAT'S NEXT
Mariners:Felix Hernandez goes for his fourth win of the season on Saturday in the 1:10 p.m. PT start. He became the Mariners' franchise leader in wins (146) when he beat Tampa Bay on May 9, surpassing former left-hander Jamie Moyer.
Reds:John Lamb looks to rebound from a rough four-inning, seven-run outing against Cleveland on Monday, as he searches for his first win of the season in the 4:10 ET start Saturday against the Mariners.
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