Like so many of the Mariners’ hitters, Dominic Canzone had a tepid start in the opening four-game series of the season against the Boston Red Sox.
The Mariners had big plans for this revamped offense, and lofty goals too for Canzone, the 26-year-old outfielder who showed flashes of light-tower power after being acquired at the trade deadline last season.
He didn’t inspire much confidence in an impending breakthrough over the weekend, though, going hitless in eight at-bats with four strikeouts against the Red Sox.
He didn’t miss in his first chance to turn things around Monday night.
Canzone belted an opposite-field, three-run home run in the second inning to get the Mariners’ offense rolling, and rookie Emerson Hancock made a strong season debut to lift the Mariners to a 5-4 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in the opener of their three-game series before a crowd of 21,322 at T-Mobile Park.
“The first couple games, we haven’t been swinging it the best,” Canzone said. “So to give a little jumpstart was really nice.”
Canzone homered on a 91-mph fastball from Cleveland’s Triston McKenzie that was well located up and away. Canzone had worked early Monday with hitting coach Jarret DeHart on just that kind of pitch, wanting to drive it the other way, and the timing could not have been better.
He lofted his first hit of the season 411 feet out to left-center field, and he pumped his right arm emphatically as he rounded first base after giving the Mariners the early 4-0 lead.
“I think he can have a big season for us,” manager Scott Servais said. “He’s got the kind of power to hit 20 to 25 home runs in this league. But I’d much rather have him be a tougher out, and then the power come along with it. So we’ve got work to do. I’m really happy for him — it was a big hit tonight in the game. We needed it, and he got it.”
Ty France drove in the Mariners’ first run in the second inning on a solid line-drive single to score Mitch Garver, who returned from a three-game absence because of back spasms.
The Mariners loaded the bases in the fourth inning to chase McKenzie, and they added another run when Luis Urias worked a bases-loaded walk off reliever Nick Sandlin. That extended the Mariners’ lead to 5-2.
The Mariners (3-2) scored a season-high five runs; they had a total of 10 runs in the four games against the Red Sox.
Servais was most pleased with the season-high six walks the Mariners took. Mariners coaches and players, during their regular pregame hitters’ meeting, reemphasized the need to be more disciplined in their approach.
“We certainly talked about it,” Servais said. “If you say you’re going to do something and don’t go out and do it, then it’s on us. We control that. …
“That’s what it’s going to take,” he added. “You gotta stay with it night after night.”
Hancock, in just his fourth major-league start, picked up his first MLB victory after working into the sixth inning. In a rite of passage, teammates showered him with beer in the celebratory clubhouse afterward.
“It’s fun, man,” Hancock said. “Just being here and playing in front of those fans, just the electricity, the energy they bring. Just everything that happened this offseason, getting the opportunity to be back and do it and just go out and trying to help us win.”
An injury fill-in for No. 5 starter Bryan Woo, Hancock showed he could have some staying power in the Mariners’ rotation. He was aggressive and efficient, throwing a first-pitch strike to 18 of the 23 batters he faced and mixing in all four of his pitches.
His final line: 5.1 innings, four hits, three earned runs, one walk and one strikeout on 81 pitches.
“Emerson’s got a lot of confidence, as he should,” Servais said. “He’s only going to continue to get better.”
On his “No Fly Zone” bobblehead night, Julio Rodriguez made two spectacular catches in center field, both robbing Will Brennan. Rodriguez’s crashed into the wall to haul in the first catch, and then came in to make a sliding grab backhanded on the second one.
“It changes the game, it really does,” Hancock said of Rodriguez’s defense. “Having somebody out there when the ball is up in the air, you know he’s got a chance to go and run it down. I mean, for a pitcher, what more could you ask for?”
In the sixth, though, Rodriguez couldn’t come down with a third web gem. He leaped at the wall, but the ball hit by Tyler Freeman deflected off his glove and over the fence for a solo homer.
It would be Hancock’s final pitch of the night.
The Mariners had their first ejection of the season in the top of the third inning, when utility player Dylan Moore was booted from the dugout by second-base umpire Vic Carapazza.
After a review, a hit-by-pitch was awarded to Cleveland’s Ramon Laureano on a pitch from Hancock. That overturned the call on the field of a groundout.
Moore, who was not in the starting lineup Monday, appeared to be arguing that Laureano had swung as the pitch hit him in the hand. A video replay appeared to support Moore’s argument, but first-base umpire Adam Hamari had ruled that Laureano checked his swing.
Laureano was awarded first base, Moore was ejected, and the Guardians mounted a rally off Hancock, scoring two runs to cut their deficit in half.
The Mariners had two runners thrown out at the plate, stalling two more potential offensive outbursts.
In the fourth, third-base coach Manny Acta sent France from third base on a J.P. Crawford fly to medium center field, and the resulting 8-2 double play ending the inning with Rodriguez on deck.
In the seventh, Rodriguez made the first out at home plate — running through Acta’s stop sign — on a Mitch Haniger single to left field. Had Rodriguez stopped, the bases would have been loaded with no outs for Garver. Instead, the Mariners weren’t able to push a run across in the inning.
In the eighth, Andrés Muñoz left a slider up in the zone that Josh Naylor turned on and belted out to right field, cutting the Mariners’ lead to 5-4.
In the ninth, new reliever Ryne Stanek retired the side in order to record his first save as a Mariner.
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