SEATTLE (AP) — Cal Raleigh hit his major league-leading 50th homer, Jorge Polanco drove in four runs and the Seattle Mariners beat the San Diego Padres 9-6 on Monday night.
J.P. Crawford had two hits and two RBIs as Seattle moved within 1 1/2 games of idle Houston for the AL West lead. Josh Naylor had two hits and scored twice.
Raleigh off JP Sears in the first for his third homer in two games. The 419-foot drive to left had a 107.2 mph exit velocity.
Raleigh joined Mickey Mantle as the only switch-hitters to hit 50 homers in a season, and he became the eighth player in major league history to reach the half-century mark in August.
Fernando Tatís Jr., Gavin Sheets, Jake Cronenworth and Ramón Laureano homered for San Diego (74-58), which dropped into second in the NL West with the Dodgers’ over Cincinnati. Cronenworth and Luis Arraez each had two hits.
Tatis capped the Padres’ four-run second with a two-run drive for his 18th homer. It was his first homer since July 24.
The Mariner scored five times in the fifth off David Morgan (1-2), who entered after Sears was pulled with two outs in the fourth.
Naylor drove in Julio Rodríguez with a tiebreaking single, and Polanco made it 7-4 with a two-run double. Crawford added a two-run single.
Polanco also hit a two-run drive in the second for his 20th homer.
Seattle’s Bryce Miller (3-5) permitted four runs and six hits in five innings.
Tatis tried to make a sliding catch on Crawford’s hit in the fifth but came up empty.
Raleigh is the second player in Mariners history to hit 50 or more homers in a single season, joining Ken Griffey Jr., who hit 56 in back-to-back seasons in 1997 and 1998.
San Diego right-hander Dylan Cease (6-11, 4.71 ERA) starts on Tuesday, and right-hander Luis Castillo (8-7, 3.57 ERA) pitches for Seattle.
___
AP MLB:
