SAN DIEGO — J.P. Crawford homered on Stephen Kolek’s first pitch and Rowdy Tellez and Cal Raleigh each added a two-run shot for the Seattle Mariners, who beat the San Diego Padres 5-1 Friday night in the opening game of the inaugural Vedder Cup.
Rookie Logan Evans (2-1) pitched six strong innings for the Mariners, who took a 1 1/2-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West. The Padres came in trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers by one game in the NL West.
The annual interleague series between the teams that share a spring training complex was informally known since 2011 as the Vedder Cup, a reference to Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. Vedder, who is actually a Chicago Cubs fan, spent some formative years in San Diego before moving to Seattle and joining the fledgling band in 1990.
The two teams formalized the competition in March, with the winner getting a trophy featuring a guitar provided by Vedder. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
The teams play again in Seattle Aug. 25-27. The Padres and Mariners will support EB Research Partnership, a charity co-founded by Eddie and Jill Vedder dedicated to funding research to discover treatments and cures for Epidermolysis Bullosa.
Crawford’s homer was his fourth. Tellez also connected to right with two outs in the fourth, with Raleigh aboard on a walk. It was his seventh. Raleigh homered to left, his 14th, after Julio Rodriguez singled leading off the sixth.
Evans held the Padres to seven hits while striking out three and walking one. Only four Padres reached scoring position. Kolek (2-1) was coming off his first career complete game in a 21-0 win at Colorado last Saturday. He allowed five runs and eight hits in five innings, with four strikeouts and one walk.
Key moment
Crawford set the tone with his 357-foot homer over the home run porch in the right field corner.
Key Stat
Crawford’s 14 leadoff homers are second in Mariners history behind Ichiro Suzuki’s 37.
Up next
Mariners RHP Emerson Hancock (1-2, 6.91 ERA) and Padres RHP Nick Pivetta (5-2, 3.05) are scheduled to start Saturday night.
