As Dylan Moore started his post-game interview Tuesday night, teammate Julio Rodriguez walked by and said, “What a player.”
Moore delivered an impressive performance to continue his hot streak and put the Seattle Mariners in position to clinch a four-game series with the host New York Yankees on Wednesday night.
The Mariners are 3-2 on a 10-game road trip after opening their visit to the Yankees with a pair of close victories. Seattle followed its 5-4 comeback win on Monday by getting two homers and four RBIs from Moore, who made his second start of the season at second base, in Tuesday’s 6-3 win.
“What a run Dylan Moore has had when we’ve needed it with some guys out,” said Seattle manager Scott Servais, who will use Moore in left field Wednesday. “Him getting an opportunity to play every day, and he’s [taken] advantage of every one of those opportunities.”
Moore is 7-for-15 with three homers and six RBIs on the trip and is hitting .276 (21-for-76) over his past 25 games, as he primarily has filled in at shortstop while J.P. Crawford recovered from a strained right oblique.
“It’s been a grind to get to this point, but I feel like I’m the most confident (I’ve been) when I get in the box this year,” said Moore, a career .212 hitter. “With the consistent playing time, I’ve been on time.”
Seattle (27-22) moved to a season-high five games over .500 and has 17 hits in the first two games of the series against the Yankees.
“I love to play and I love to hit, and if you hit, you play,” Moore said.
New York will attempt to avoid its second three-game losing streak of the season and the first since dropping three straight April 14-16, against Cleveland and Toronto. The Yankees had a seven-game winning streak stopped Monday and are 13-4 over their past 17 contests.
On Tuesday, Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt labored through 100 pitches over five innings and said he felt he was tipping pitches.
“Obviously tipping is a part of this game, and it’s a factor, and it’s always in the back of our heads and something that we’re well aware of,” Schmidt said.
Gleyber Torres hit a three-run homer in the seventh inning Tuesday, but Juan Soto and Aaron Judge were a combined 0-for-7 with three strikeouts as the Yankees mustered five hits against Bryan Woo and four relievers.
After Woo allowed two hits in six scoreless innings, Seattle’s Bryce Miller (3-4, 3.08 ERA) will attempt to end a five-start winless skid when he pitches Wednesday.
Since winning three straight starts from April 6-17, Miller is 0-2 with a 4.07 ERA, and he allowed five runs (four earned) on six hits in 5 1/3 innings in a 9-2 loss to start the road trip against the Baltimore Orioles on Friday.
The right-hander’s only previous appearance against the Yankees occurred last May 29 in Seattle, when he was tagged for eight runs on 11 hits in 4 2/3 innings of a 10-4 loss.
Nestor Cortes (2-4, 3.56 ERA), who is 2-1 with a 1.27 ERA in five home starts this season, will go for the Yankees on Wednesday. The left-hander is holding opposing hitters to a .168 batting average at home and continued his Yankee Stadium success Friday by allowing an unearned run on five hits in seven innings during a 4-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.
Cortes is 1-0 with a 4.08 ERA in four career appearances (three starts) against Seattle. He got his only win against the Mariners when he allowed two runs on five hits in five innings in a 10-2 victory at Seattle on May 30, 2023.
