SEATTLE — On the day Felix Hernandez returned to the mound, Leonys Martin gave the Seattle Mariners the biggest boost.
Martin hit his second home run of the game, a solo shot with one out in the 11th inning that sent Seattle over the Chicago White Sox 6-5 on Wednesday.
“Every time you win a ballgame, it’s good no matter how you win the ballgame, but this is a great feeling,” Martin said.
Martin hit a two-run drive in the second inning. He then drove an 0-2 pitch from Dan Jennings (3-2) over the wall in right for his 13th homer. His previous season high was eight homers in 457 at-bats with Texas in 2013.
“With two strikes, especially in the second half, he’s taking some walks, he’s not swinging quite as hard,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “I believe the pitch he hit out was an 0-2 pitch. Not trying to kill it, just hit it, because he’s got a lot of ability.”
Vidal Nuno (1-1) pitched one inning for the victory.
Seattle pulled within 5-4 on Mike Zunino’s two-run homer in seventh. The Mariners tied it on Adam Lind’s solo shot in the eighth.
The Mariners nearly won it in the 10th. Nelson Cruz drew a two-out walk and tried to score on Kyle Seager’s double, but right fielder Adam Eaton threw out the Seattle slugger at the plate.
Hernandez, activated off the disabled list earlier in the day, allowed five runs on 10 hits in 6 2/3 innings. He struck out two and walked two in his first start since May 27.
“It feels good to be out there, try and do my job to help my team to win,” said Hernandez, who threw 94 pitches. “I had a good sinker, got a lot of groundballs. They were swinging, they were swinging at every pitch and that’s why my pitch count was pretty low.”
Todd Frazier hit a three-run homer in the first off Hernandez. Frazier’s 28th home run tied him for the major league lead with Baltimore’s Mark Trumbo.
“It was a changeup. I left it up,” Hernandez said. “Frazier’s got pretty good pop and put a good swing on it.”
Hernandez struck out Eaton to begin the game, but Melky Cabrera followed with a double into the left-field corner. Justin Morneau drew a two-out walk and Frazier connected for his third homer in three games.
The White Sox added a run in the second on consecutive two-out singles by Tyler Saladino, Eaton and Cabrera to make it 4-0. Martin homered in the bottom half.
Chicago pushed the lead to 5-2 in the fifth on a leadoff triple by Cabrera and Morneau’s single.
Seattle cut the led to 5-4 in the seventh on the home run by Zunino, also called up earlier in the day from Triple-A Tacoma. It was the third homer for Zunino, who hit two during an earlier two-game call-up.
Lind, whose pinch-hit, three-run homer in the ninth inning gave Seattle a 4-3 victory on Monday, tied it with his 15th homer.
“The home run was our friend early, and then it became our enemy,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “You give up enough of those, it’s tough to withstand it.”
Servais was pleased with what he saw from Hernandez.
“I think for the first time out, he was probably better than I thought he would be, other than the home run that he gave up to Frazier,” Servais said. “I thought his stuff was good, I thought he was pretty crisp, but after the first inning at that point if you had told me he was going to get as deep as he did into the game, I probably wouldn’t have believed it.”
STRIKEOUT MACHIINE
Mariners rookie reliever Edwin Diaz fanned all three batters he faced in the eighth, giving him six consecutive outs by strikeout. The 22-year-old hard-throwing righty has struck out 42 in 20 2/3 innings, while allowing five runs.
UPON FURTHER REVIEW
In the eighth inning, Seager was called safe at first ahead of a double-play relay. The White Sox challenged and the play was overturned. Lind followed with a solo homer.
UP NEXT
Mariners: Seattle opens an 11-day, eight-game road trip on Friday at Toronto. LHP James Paxton (2-4, 4.56 ERA) starts the opener, followed by Hisashi Iwakuma (10-6).
TRAINER’S ROOM
White Sox: With LHP Carlos Rodon (wrist) not ready to come off the disabled list, RHP Jacob Turner will get his second start of the season Friday. He allowed eight runs on seven hits in four innings in an 8-1 loss to the Angels last Sunday.
Mariners: SS Ketel Marte was out for the third straight game with an illness. He was not expected to travel with the team to Toronto on Wednesday night, pending a few more tests, but Servais said he hoped Marte would join the team in time for the series against the Blue Jays that begins Friday.
The Mariners also announced that minor league outfielder Kyle Lewis, the team’s first-round draft pick in 2016, injured his knee and is expected to miss the rest of the season. Lewis, 21, a two-time Southern Conference player of the year at Mercer, was the 11th overall pick in last month’s draft. He was injured Tuesday in a collision at home plate while playing for the Class-A Everett AquaSox and tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), as well as a medial and lateral meniscus in his right knee. Lewis was hitting .299 with three homers, eight doubles, five triples and 26 RBIs in 30 games with Everett in the Northwest League.
