Yanks rout M's behind Taillon's gem

With the way the Yankees’ roster is constructed, the goal is to do damage -- early and often. They haven’t been able to do it consistently of late, entering Tuesday having scored five runs or fewer in seven of their last nine games; relatedly, they had gone 2-7 in those contests.

But on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park, the Yankees bucked that trend, tallying a trio of three-run frames -- including in the first two innings -- en route to a 12-1 series-opening victory over the Mariners. Buoyed by six players with multihit games -- including a 5-for-6 showing from Luke Voit -- the Yanks put together their best offensive performance of the year (their 18 hits and 12 runs were both season highs).

• Box score

“Everyone contributed up and down the lineup, really good at-bats. It was a game where it was nice to get some breaks,” said manager Aaron Boone. “We had some infield hits, some soft contact go for hits. Any time you rack up that many hits, that’s going to happen, but we haven’t had a lot of games where we found holes when it hasn’t been perfect. And that was nice to see.”

Giancarlo Stanton started the scoring with a line-drive three-run homer that clanged off the left-field railing with an exit velocity of 115.8 mph, per Statcast, and Voit added to it with a two-run single that knocked Seattle starter Justus Sheffield out of the game after just 1 2/3 innings. Rougned Odor rounded out the proceedings by launching another three-run homer in the eighth, his 12th homer at T-Mobile Park -- which is his most at any ballpark as a visitor.

Aided by a comfortable advantage, Jameson Taillon settled in and put together the best start of his Yankees career, tossing seven innings of one-run ball while collecting a season-high nine strikeouts. He allowed just four hits and one walk in the 101-pitch outing, an encouraging and perhaps necessary performance for a Yanks rotation that had been reeling in the 2-4 homestand leading up to this road trip.

“That was a big pick-me-up,” Boone said. “I thought he was probably as good as he’s been. And the mix of pitches, the quality of really all his pitches … pounding the strike zone but mixing up his looks all the time. I just thought that was an exciting outing. He was in complete control out there. We definitely needed it.”

What was also needed was the Yankees’ drastic improvement with runners in scoring position. After entering the day with a .226 average in those situations, they went 7-for-15 against Seattle to compile a markedly better .466 average.

Those efforts were largely anchored by Voit, who notched his first career five-hit game. Since returning from the injured list on June 22, Voit had five of his 10 hits go for extra bases (two homers, two doubles, one triple). But on Tuesday night, he used four singles to do most of his damage.

“He’s huge for us,” Boone said. “Just adding the length, the tough at-bats he brings. … When guys have the ability to use the whole field, especially when you have the kind of power that Luke does, that’s usually a good thing.”

With the offense rolling like it was, Taillon could put his head down and go to work. He used the entirety of his five-pitch arsenal effectively, but he relied primarily on his fastball (44 pitches), while mixing in his curveball (22), slider (17), sinker (10) and changeup (8).

“We had everything working tonight,” Taillon said. “We used the heater up, we used it down, we got ahead in a lot of counts with curveballs. I was able to throw my better curveball later in counts for the finish. There were a few good changeups. … When I have those pitches going, it takes some pressure off my slider; I don’t have to be quite as perfect or as nasty with it. So I thought everything just coupled together and paired really well.”

But as much as he was focused on the performance he was delivering, he was equally eager to hand the ball back over to his teammates.

“It’s cool in the dugout. You can just feel them feeding off each other. They had some energy and swag tonight out there,” Taillon said. “[I thought], let’s just be aggressive. I wanted to get those guys back in the batter’s box as quickly as possible to let them do their thing.”

It was precisely the type of the start the Yankees were looking for to begin a six-game road trip against the Mariners and Astros, a pair of American League West opponents that entered the week with better overall records than New York.

“We haven’t had a lot of games where we’ve gotten out and just kinda run away,” Boone said. “For the offense to do what they did and for Jamo to take it from there, you love these kind of games when you’re on the right side of it.”