SEATTLE - Of the 14 other teams in the American League, no group of hitters gives Hisashi Iwakuma more trouble than the Boston Red Sox. Iwakuma came into the game with a career 8.59 ERA in five starts against them, having given up 21 runs in 22 innings pitched.
But he exorcised some of those demons on Wednesday night. Iwakuma tossed 71/3 shutout innings, giving up five hits with seven strikeouts and no walks and got three solo home runs of support in a 3-1 win over the Red Sox.
Seattle improved to 54-52 on the season.
Using pinpoint fastball command and diving splitfinger, Iwakuma changed eye levels and kept Red Sox hitters off balance all night to improve to 12-7 on the season.
The Mariners mustered just four hits on the night against Red Sox starter Rick Porcello. But three of them landed in the outfield seats of Safeco Field to provide all the offense they would need.
Nelson Cruz hammered a 1-1 fastball from Porcello into the upper deck of left field. It was his 27th homer of the season. MLB Statcast put the distance at 441 feet, exiting the bat at 112 mph.
The Mariners' second hit came in the sixth. Leading off the inning, Mike Zunino got a 0-1 fastball at the belt and drove it over the wall in dead center for his fifth homer of the season to make it 2-0.
The third hit came with two outs in the seventh inning. Adam Lind sat on a 2-0 changeup and yanked it into the right field seats for his 16th homer of the season. The third solo blast made it, yep, 3-0.
Iwakuma started the eighth, striking out Sandy Leon. But he then gave up a one-out broken bat, bloop single to rookie Andrew Benintendi. With his pitch count at 97 and the top of the order coming to bat for the fourth time in the game, manager Scott Servais went to his bullpen.
Right-hander Drew Storen came in and immediately gave up a single to Mookie Betts. But he got Brock Holt to pop out to short for the second out. The third out had Mariners' fans holding their breath as Xander Bogaerts' long fly ball to left field was caught at the warning track by Norichika Aoki.
Working in his second save opportunity, Edwin Diaz fought through some mild drama.
After blowing a 99 mph fastball by David Ortiz for a swinging strikeout to start the ninth, Diaz gave up a single to Jackie Bradley Jr. and hit Aaron Hill with a pitch, meaning the tying run would come to the plate at least once. A wild pitch moved the runners up a base. The Mariners allowed Bradley to score on Travis Shaw's ground ball to second to cut the lead to 3-1. After falling behind 2-0 to Sandy Leon, Diaz came back to get the count full. Leon's hard ground ball on the 3-2 pitch was gobbled up by a sliding Cano in right field as part of a shift. He fired quickly to first for the final out of the game.
