SEATTLE — The sight of a slugger such as the Seattle Mariners’ Robinson Cano waving weakly at a two-strike curveball in the dirt is one Jameson Taillon eventually will get used to. But to see it up close for the first time startled the rookie right-hander. He knows Cano’s reputation.
And Cano soon will know his.
Taillon tossed six innings of one-run baseball Wednesday night in an 8-1 win at Safeco Field. He was in possession of a wicked 12-to-6 curveball that dipped and dived beneath uppercuts and onto the bottom shelf of the strike zone. In his second career win, Taillon (2-1) scattered six hits and six strikeouts, and, for the first time in five starts in the majors, he walked no one.
The Pirates awakened with 11 hits, and the Mariners infield chipped in three errors as the teams split the brief two-game series in Seattle. Sean Rodriguez collected a career-high four RBIs on two doubles and reached base four times. Starling Marte had three singles and scored three times.
“We really didn't need much, the way Jameson was throwing,” Rodriguez said. “He was on his game.”
Taillon’s start began with Leonys Martin’s broken-bat grounder and ended with a Houdini escape in the sixth. Manager Clint Hurdle said Taillon’s best pitches were his last few. After Seth Smith and Cano singled back to back — Smith on the 13th pitch of his at-bat, Cano on the first — Taillon fell behind 3-1 on cleanup hitter Nelson Cruz. He turned to his two-seamer, a pitch he picked up just this spring while waiting for his promotion from Class AAA Indianapolis.
“The 3-1 pitch was probably one of the better pitches I've ever thrown,” Taillon said later.
Cruz whiffed on consecutive 95 mph sinking fastballs. Taillon was at 95 pitches and through.
It was a bounce-back effort from Taillon, who had allowed four runs over four innings in each of his previous two starts. He referred to his short start Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers as a “little slap in the face.” The curveball wasn’t working then. It was back Wednesday.
“When you see good hitters take funny swings,” Hurdle said, “you know it's coming out of his hand looking like a strike — and then it's gone.”
How can the curve be gone one start, and there the next?
"If I had that figured out, I'd have all the answers,” Taillon said, laughing.
The Pirates round out July with a 9-19 record and an off day today. They avoided notching their first 20-loss month since September 2012, when they went 7-21 and vanished from the playoff picture.
David Freese, the Pirates’ mid-spring training signee, has been — to borrow a descriptor from Hurdle — “toxic” against left-handed pitching this season. He greeted left-hander Wade Miley (6-4) in the second with a first-pitch home run to right field, his seventh homer this season. Freese, who went 2 for 5, has a .345 average against left-handers since joining the Pirates.
The beatdown was on. After a single and a hit by pitch later in the inning, Josh Harrison attacked Miley’s initial offering, a changeup, and doubled to left field, scoring both runners.
Rodriguez was playing in his first game back at Safeco Field since striking out to complete Felix Hernandez’s perfect game Aug. 15, 2012. He exacted a measure of revenge Wednesday. Or maybe it was two measures of revenge.
In the fourth, Rodriguez roped an RBI double over the right fielder Cruz’s head, then scored on Jordy Mercer’s single. In the fifth, with right-hander Donn Roach on in relief, Rodriguez cleared the bases with another double, this one pulled down the left-field line.
“Those are the situations you want to come up in,” Rodriguez said.
Taillon retired 10 batters in a row from the first inning — a frame Jung Ho Kang ended by snaring a smashed grounder and turning it into a 5-4-3 double play — and the fourth. The Mariners (39-39) broke through in the fifth when Adam Lind, one of six lefties in the lopsided lineup, singled the other way to score Kyle Seager, who had bounced a ground-rule double.
After Taillon departed, A.J. Schugel, Neftali Feliz and Tony Watson pitched perfect innings to protect the lead. The Pirates bullpen has thrown 20⅔ consecutive scoreless innings.
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: June 30, 2016, 5:01 a.m.
Updated: June 30, 2016, 5:06 a.m.