'He's got primal power': Suárez stars vs. A's

OAKLAND -- The Mariners sent 11 batters to the plate on Friday night. Each one of them walked away with at least one hit. That's a pretty decent winning formula.

The last time the Mariners did that was over a decade ago, on May 23, 2011. And it may serve as the latest example of Seattle's offense fully kicking into high gear, the Mariners putting up double-digit runs for the second consecutive game in Friday night's 10-2 rout of the A's.

The cumulative production was impressive enough, but Eugenio Suárez's two towering blasts ultimately stole the show. The 31-year-old third baseman logged his second multi-homer game as a Mariner -- his first coming on May 6 in an 8-7 loss to the Rays -- and collected a career-high-tying five RBIs to power the club to a series-opening win at the Coliseum.

"Obviously, we did a lot offensively tonight. It was great to see," manager Scott Servais said. "Every guy that got in this game got a hit, which doesn't happen very often. But none better than Geno -- Geno showed up huge tonight."

Suárez has been a streaky hitter throughout his career, but left-hander Marco Gonzales -- who earned the win with 5 1/3 innings of two-run (one earned) ball -- described his teammate's capabilities a little differently.

"He's got primal power," Gonzales said. "He calls everybody primals; he's a liver king."

"We got this [from a] guy from Instagram, and he's just big," Suárez explained. "I started calling everybody primal. … It's like, 'Hey, you're a primal. Come on, you've got this.'

"It's really nice now that everybody called me a real primal," Suárez added with a laugh.

That so-called primal power was on full display on Friday night.

The Mariners found themselves down a run early on, after both teams scored in the first inning and the A's walked away with a slim 2-1 advantage. From there, Gonzales swapped zeros with Oakland's Cole Irvin for a couple of innings -- until Suárez hit his first bomb of the evening to give the Mariners the lead for good.

That shot came off a hanging curveball, and it was a true no-doubter. Suárez belted it 397 feet to deep left field -- good enough of a poke to qualify as a homer in every MLB ballpark.

But the party wasn't over just yet. Suárez went deep again off Irvin in his very next at-bat, this time driving in three runs on a booming shot to center field. The ball left his bat at 110 mph, and the Mariners suddenly held a commanding 6-2 lead.

The Mariners see Suárez as a guy who's good for 30-35 home runs in a season -- which has mostly proven true in his career, as he has hit at least 30 home runs in three of his six full seasons in the Majors so far. Of course, with that power comes the tendency to swing and miss; true to form, his strikeout rate is north of 30% and his 160 strikeouts lead the Majors.

But even when Suárez isn't producing at the plate, his presence in the clubhouse is key to making the Mariners' offense go.

"Good vibes only for Geno," Servais said. "He's streaky, we knew that when we acquired him, but he's had an awesome year. I can't give him enough credit for what he's done defensively. The quality of at-bats -- he really controls the strike zone pretty well. I know everybody gets caught up, like, 'Ah, the strikeouts,' this and that -- but he knows what the game calls for."

Added Gonzales: "He's such a fun guy to be around, so to see him having success like that is special, and so I'm proud to be his teammate. He's awesome."

Suárez, who came to the Mariners with Jesse Winker in a trade with Cincinnati during Spring Training, is one of the newer players in the Seattle clubhouse -- but he has already become one of the core guys.

And that's a role Suárez happily embraces, an element of roster construction that has become especially important as the Mariners continue to fight for their first playoff berth in over two decades. They ended the night holding a one-game lead on Toronto for the top AL Wild Card spot.

"The more important thing is not how we play; it's how we keep that energy when we're not doing the right thing," Suárez said. "Because you're not always winning. When you win, everything is fine. But when you lose, that's when you really think about the good vibes and all that stuff, keeping that energy, keeping that level. I think that's how I'm making this team better."