CHICAGO -- They were stingy. They were patient. They were resilient. And their perseverance paid off.

The Mariners bullied American League Cy Young Award candidate Carlos Rodón and the first-place White Sox in a 9-3 win on Friday, waiting out four walks against the left-hander, forcing him to throw 104 pitches and pushing him to the dugout for good after just five innings.

Two of the three runs that Rodón surrendered were via runners that he put on base for free: a hit-by-pitch to Tom Murphy, who scored on the first of two homers by Luis Torrens, and Ty France, who walked and scored on an RBI single by Jake Bauers.

Rodón wound up giving up just five hits, but he was visibly out of gas by the time he left, which underscored how much the Mariners made him work. He threw a combined 17 pitches in walks to Bauers and Kyle Seager in his final inning, and J.P. Crawford beat him after nine pitches for a single to lead off the game.

“I loved our approach and the fact that we grinded at bats,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “We took some walks we had deep, deep at-bats.”

The offense’s showing was impressive enough given Rodón’s pedigree -- his 1.83 ERA entering Friday was the AL’s best (min. 70 innings) -- but what was more telling was how improved the Mariners’ offense looked compared to the last time the team faced him on April 5, when he punched out nine and gave up just two hits, before tossing a no-hitter against Cleveland in his next start. 

The approach was simple: Rodón is a swing-and-miss specialist with a wipeout slider and elite curveball. So, instead of attacking the breaking balls, wait out the heat and prepare for him to throw it high. 

“He busted all the righties in, and then for lefties, [our approach was] just trying to be aware that when we get into hitters' counts, he the majority of the time goes to the fastball,” said center fielder Jake Fraley, who struck out against Rodón in that first meeting in April. “So don't be looking for the slider, try to jump on that fastball, and he's going to be throwing it in the top of the zone."

Rodón still managed eight strikeouts against the 25 batters he faced, but he generated only 14 whiffs, a low number in what's been an elite season for the lefty. The Mariners were willing to trade some punchouts -- as long as they were patient in doing so.

"That’s where he throws it, and he gets a lot of swings and misses up there,” Fraley said. “So, really looking forward at the top of the zone, because that's where he's going to throw it and try to be on time for it. … For us, we went back to what didn't work the first time we faced him. We kind of adjusted the game plan slightly, and it worked in our favor.”

But beyond Rodón, the Mariners also battered Chicago’s bullpen for five earned runs, including the second Torrens homer -- a 367-foot opposite-field shot that also had Murphy on base -- and a two-run shot by Fraley, who worked the count full before golfing out a hanging curveball from José Ruiz, the latest sign of Fraley's far more diligent approach this season.

Each of the nine hitters in the Mariners’ lineup had a hit on Friday, with the team totaling 14, but none stood out more than Torrens, who is 9-for-24 with five -- yes, five -- homers since returning from his Minor League demotion on June 15. He now has 41 hits this season between the Majors and Triple-A Tacoma, 13 of which have left the yard. 

“I believe in myself. I believe I have a strong power enough to hit homers,” Torrens said. “Well, everything is about believing in myself, right? I have to believe in myself first. And in my mind, I’m the best. I’ll show everybody who I am as a player and as a person too, and that's my mindset -- trying to be the best on the field.”

Beyond the offense, it certainly helped the Mariners’ matters that they sent their best arm to the mound as a counterpunch. Other than a two-walk sixth inning that cut his outing short, Yusei Kikuchi continued to make an All-Star bid and lowered his ERA to 3.34. He gave up just two hits and only one mistake, a hanging cutter that Yasmani Grandal made him pay for by sending it 438 feet into the left-field bleachers.

“Definitely a good lineup,” Kikuchi said through an interpreter of Chicago's normaly potent attack. “They have a lot of good hitters that are patient and don’t really swing out of the zone very much. And so the plan going in was now just to stay aggressive, stay ahead in the count. And I think I was able to do that today.”