Seattle Mariners: Kikuchi debuts, Lewis homers in 11-3 win over Reds

Just a little under a week into Cactus League play, the Mariners are in the full Spring swing. Today, they squared of with the Cincinnati Reds at the Peoria Sports Complex.

This game offered a lot of firsts and plenty of excitement to go along with it. To start things off, Yusei Kikuchi made his North American debut. The 27-year-old Japanese import served up a scoreless first inning that included a strikeout of Joey Votto, who weakly swung at a devastating breaking ball.

The second inning was a bit of a struggle for Kikuchi, though some of his misfortunes were out of his control. After Kikuchi walked Eugenio Suárez to start the inning, Reds catching prospect Chris Okey grounded a routine double play ball that Tim Beckham mishandled, allowing both runners to reach safely. The Reds eventually pushed the runs across the plate, though both were deemed unearned.

Kikuchi wrapped up his day with a final line of two runs (both unearned) on one hit, one walk, and one strikeout. Outside of the punchout of Votto, Kikuchi’s breaking ball wasn’t as sharp as it should be, though he showed good life in his fastball and looked comfortable on the mound. It was a good first step in what should be a decently long adjustment period for Kikuchi.

On the offensive side of things, the Mariners continued their early trend of hot starts. Following a Shed Long walk against his former team, Edwin Encarnación rocketed a RBI double off the base of the left field wall in his first at-bat as a Mariner.

Domingo Santana quickly followed things up with a two-run moonshot to deep center. It was 3-0 Mariners right out of the gate, but the offensive explosion was far from over.

Aside from Kikuchi, perhaps the second biggest storyline entering the game was the Mariners’ starting right fielder, Kyle Lewis. Our sixth overall ranked Mariners prospect, Lewis had a fantastic day that started with a bloop single that just escaped the glove of Yasiel Puig.

But the biggest play of the game came when Lewis muscled a 2-2 offering from Michael Lorenzen into the baby blue Arizona sky, well over the left field fence:

Speaking of top Mariners prospects, Evan White kept his hot start to the Spring going with a 2-for-2 day that included a RBI double that just missed going over the wall by about a foot. White is staying consistent in his plate approach and appears to be ready to take the next step in his development going into 2019.

Ryon Healy and Eric Filia joined in on the scoring parade with a bases loaded sacrifice fly each, then Ian Miller lifted a three-run homer onto the right field berm. This was especially impressive – and equally as rare – given that Miller has only recorded five dingers in his five years in the Mariners’ system.

Not a whole lot of excitement coming from the Reds’ side of things, outside of a solo shot from Phil Ervin off Dan Altavilla in the fifth inning. The bats remained quiet for the rest of the day as David McKay closed the game out for the Mariners. They are now 3-1 in Cactus League play thus far.

Tomorrow, the Texas Rangers will make their way to Peoria. Marco Gonzales will make his second appearance of the Spring after pitching the only inning in the Mariners’ rain-shortened Cactus League debut. The game starts at 12:10 PM PT and will be televised on ROOT Sports.