The last time Randy Arozarena found a power streak like this he was on his way to becoming the MVP of the American League Championship Series.

For now, he’s a little bit of pop to an offense that in the first three games of its homestand has been rather punchless.

Arozarena homered for the third straight game on Wednesday night and added a sacrifice fly as the Mariners beat the Kansas City Royals 3-2 before 24,752 at T-Mobile Park.

“We’ve talked about the last several days, really seen the ball well. Seems to be his timing is outstanding and whether it’s a fastball or breaking ball, he’s on it and really driving the ball,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “You can tell he’s comfortable. He’s finding the barrel. His at-bats have been great. And again, that lifts everybody up.”

Arozarena homered twice in the series opener on Monday, went deep on Tuesday and continued his home run streak on Wednesday. His solo shot leading off the sixth inning came on a 3-2 breaking ball from John Schreiber and traveled 418 feet out to center field.

An inning later, Arozarena’s sacrifice fly scored Cole Young immediately after Julio Rodríguez blistered an infield single off the glove of Kansas City third baseman Maikel Garcia for a hit that scored Ben Williamson. Williamson opened the inning with a double and Young reached on a fielder’s choice when pitcher Angel Zerpa tried unsuccessfully to get Williamson as he scampered back into second base.

Williamson said it’d been a while since he felt like he got one off the barrel and his dive back into second was the memory of his former college coach Mike McRae telling him how to handle that situation.

“I feel like I’ve been lacking a little bit on my offensive side in the last couple of weeks, so it felt really good to be dialed in on both sides of the ball,” Williamson said.

Arozarena now has 12 homers for the season and he’s had 20 hits in the last 13 games after a two-hit game on Wednesday. It’s his first three-game home run streak in the regular season, and the only time he accomplished the feat came in the 2020 playoffs when he homered in three straight games of the division series, part of the record-setting 10 home runs he hit in that postseason with the Rays.

His power surge couldn’t come at a better time as the M’s need someone to start helping out Cal Raleigh, who was out of the starting lineup for just the third time this season. Along with the homers, Arozarena has five doubles and an OPS over 1.000 over the past 13 games.

While Arozarena was providing the offense, the M’s continued to receive excellent pitching from their bullpen. Gabe Speier and Carlos Vargas combined for 2 1/3 scoreless innings with five strikeouts between the pair. The only runner to reach was Freddy Fermin after he was clipped by Vargas’ pitch with one out in the seventh inning, but he never left first base as Vargas struck out Kyle Isbel and Jonathan India.

Matt Brash finally allowed a run after holding opponents scoreless in his first 19 appearances to start the season. Brash gave up singles to Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino before Salvador Perez’s second RBI single of the game pulled the Royals within 3-2 in the eighth.

But the Royals couldn’t sustain the rally and Andrés Muñoz pitched the ninth for his 19 th save and his first since June 8.

“I was trying not to think about it and just go out there and do my job, but obviously it’s on your mind a little bit,” Brash said of his streak. “But like you said, it was going to end at some point and I’m looking forward to getting back out there and start a new one.”

Seattle starter Logan Gilbert said in the past he might be more annoyed by his outing despite holding the Royals to just one run, but is trying to look at it in the context of a long season with a start that had some positives. Gilbert was done after 4 2/3 innings as the lowest-scoring team in baseball in the month of June made him labor to record 14 outs before being pulled.

“It’s so easy to get frustrated, especially with my standards, so I have to be careful and try to just look at the positives, and then kind of look with a neutral eye of just like things to work on without being like, ‘this was bad, this was bad,'” Gilbert said. “Because you can kind of go down in a dark place. So I just try to take the good and then take the things I need to work on. But ultimately, when we win like that, all the way around team effort, everybody doing their part, you got to be encouraged by that.”

Gilbert threw 95 pitches and allowed only three hits and one run. He also struck out seven. But Gilbert walked a season-high three batters and two other times went to a three-ball count. He was lifted after walking Witt on a 3-1 pitch in the fifth inning.

Gilbert’s pitch count was out of sorts from the start as he faced six batters in the first inning, including Perez’s two-out line drive single off the wall in left field that scored Witt. Gilbert also needed 22 pitches to get through the third inning despite facing just four batters.

“Coming out with one run isn’t the worst and then shout out to Gabe picking me up big time,” Gilbert said. “The bullpen has been doing such a good job. Randy’s been going off, so all that stuff’s just really, really good to see.”

Wilson announced after the game that Logan Evans would get the start in Thursday’s series finale with Bryan Woo pushed back to Friday.

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