SEATTLE (AP) — Ty France homered for the second time in three games, Bryan Woo allowed one run over 5 1/3 innings for his first win and the Seattle Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals 4-2 on Wednesday.
The Mariners took two of three from the Royals and have won eight of their last nine series. Seattle will head out on a key 10-game road trip on the East Coast four games above .500 and leading the AL West.
France hit a solo shot off Kansas City starter Alec Marsh in the fourth inning to give Seattle a 2-0 lead. France also homered on Monday in the series opener.
Seattle also got an unearned run in the second inning after Adam Frazier was unable to cleanly field Luis Urías’ grounder behind third base with the bases loaded, and the Mariners added on two key runs late. Josh Rojas had a two-out RBI single in the seventh inning and Luke Raley added an RBI single in the eighth.
“The add-on runs today were huge. Guys just kept grinding through knowing that we have to have good at-bats,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “We got some big hits.”
While Woo was terrific, Andrés Muñoz came through late, getting the final five outs for his seventh save. He also pitched around an error by Urías in the ninth. It was his second five-out save of the season.
Muñoz said his approach has changed a bit since the start of the season.
“I was a little more cautious about throw the pitch here, throw the pitch here,” Muñoz said. “What I changed was just throw the ball the hardest that I can right in the middle. Obviously I don’t want to hit the middle, but that is my mentality right now.”
Woo (1-0) cruised through the first five innings allowing only one hit, before running into a jam in the sixth inning. Woo had a long fifth inning in the dugout due to an umpire change between the top and bottom of the inning, as home plate umpire Jim Wolf was replaced for precautionary reasons after taking a foul ball off the facemask.
When Woo returned for the sixth, he wasn’t as sharp and immediately ran into trouble with two singles and a walk. Bobby Witt Jr. delivered a sacrifice fly to score Freddy Fermin, but reliever Gabe Speier ended the threat by getting a foul pop out from Vinny Pasquantino and struck out Salvador Perez to end the inning.
Woo struck out five and walked only one. His first start of the season last Friday had been cut short due to tightness in his right forearm following a long inning in the dugout.
“You have to learn. I think today we did a really good job adjusting from obviously the last start and came up with some good ideas of how to stay hot between innings,” Woo said.
Witt also had an RBI groundout in the eighth that scored Fermin.
“You got to try to capitalize. You know they’re going to be generally low-scoring games when you play these guys,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. “They have a good pitching staff and we put ourselves in a couple spots to do some good things.”
Marsh (3-1) allowed just one earned run but took his first loss of the season. He struck out seven and has allowed just two earned runs in his past four starts combined.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Mariners: 2B Jorge Polanco (hamstring) and DH Mitch Garver (back) were out of the lineup for a second straight day. Both could return Friday in Baltimore.
UP NEXT
Both teams are off on Thursday. The Royals return home to open a three-game series with Oakland on Friday, while Seattle starts a 10-game road trip in Baltimore on Friday.
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