CHICAGO -- The Mariners left Guaranteed Rate Field on a strong note, albeit too little too late in the seven-inning nightcap of Sunday’s two-game affair. But their overall effort this weekend against the first-place White Sox, especially Taylor Trammell’s performance in the matinee, extended what has been a stellar stretch over the past two weeks.

Trammell lifted Seattle to a 3-2 win in Game 1 with a go-ahead homer and a game-saving catch, both in the ninth inning, before the Mariners fell in the second game, 7-5, when the White Sox ambushed a throng of relievers filling in for Marco Gonzales, who was placed on the paternity list earlier Sunday.

• Game 1 box score

• Game 2 box score

Mitch Haniger made things interesting with a three-run homer in the seventh, but White Sox closer Liam Hendriks closed the door with a 10-pitch strikeout to Shed Long Jr. and a lineout from Ty France. 

But back to Trammell: His bang-bang ninth in the matinee manifested so quickly that if you blinked, you might’ve missed it. 

With two outs and two strikes in a 2-2 game against the All-Star Hendriks, Trammell hammered a middle-middle slider from the reigning American League Reliever of the Year and sent it 387 feet into the right-field bleachers for a no-doubt dagger, his second solo homer of the game. As he watched it soar, Trammell had a nifty bat flip before heading to first base.

Then in the bottom of the inning, with a runner on first base and Mariners closer Kendall Graveman battling, Trammell tracked down a line drive from Jake Lamb deep into the left-center gap that off the bat looked like it was destined to be a walk-off homer. He needed to cover 97 feet in five seconds to convert the play that Statcast said had just a 25 percent catch probability, making it a five-star play, the most elite. 

“We're in Chicago, Windy City, so the wind is going all types of directions,” Trammell said. “So initially, pre-pitch, I'm checking the wind … and once he hit it, I knew I had a good read on it. I knew it was either going to be a wall ball or warning-track ball, and it ended up being a warning-track ball. But he put a good swing on it, and I was just in a good position to catch it.”

It was an all-around performance that further underscored how much Seattle needs Trammell to produce at or near this level, especially given that he’s been the primary center-field fill-in for reigning AL Rookie of the Year Kyle Lewis, who is out for the foreseeable future following right meniscus surgery.

Trammell got off to a hot start after returning from a Minor League demotion on June 1, but his bat has lagged in recent weeks. He entered Sunday in a 2-for-31 stretch over 11 games with 17 strikeouts, looking more like the April version of himself, when he was admittedly overwhelmed by big league pitching at times.

But that wasn’t the case whatsoever on Sunday. He also homered on a middle-in sinker from Dallas Keuchel in the fifth, his first off a lefty, and it came with some deception from right fielder Luis González, who lost the ball in the sun and made it look like there would be a play in the field.

“I kind of knew off the bat when I hit it, so I kind of knew, ‘OK, I got it,’” Trammell said. “And then I looked at him looking all over the place, and I was like, ‘Um, is it gone?’ So, it kind of threw me off guard a little bit.”

Trammell, who recently graduated from MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 overall prospects list, entered the day hitting just .068/.180/.091 against lefties. So, it was a promising sign to see him connect against Keuchel, the 2015 AL Cy Young Award winner.

“Unbelievable game. Taylor was locked in today,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.

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The Mariners, winners of 10 of their past 13, now march to Buffalo, N.Y., to take on the Blue Jays, another contending club that reached the postseason last year -- and one that sits only a half-game ahead of Seattle in the American League Wild Card standings. Overall, the Mariners are 5 1/2 games out of the second AL Wild Card spot, which Oakland currently holds, with only Toronto and Cleveland ahead.

“We’re excited for an off-day, too,” Servais said. “It's a long day of baseball ... but we're playing good baseball. We’ve got a lot of confidence with this group, just a little clunky with the rainout yesterday and going back-to-back today, but like I said, I thought we played really well in the series.”