Mariners happy to welcome Marte back

ARLINGTON — Mariners shortstop Ketel Marte completed his injury rehab stint with Triple-A Tacoma on Saturday and will rejoin the Mariners on Monday, which is welcome news for a club that had won just three of nine games going into Sunday’s series finale against the Rangers since outfielder Leonys Martin joined him on the 15-day disabled list.

Missing two of their premier defenders up the middle, the Mariners have seen their pitching suffer during that stretch. Over that nine-game stretch, Seattle’s starters have boasted an unwieldy 9.34 ERA and the team has allowed 7.7 runs a game.

Coincidence? Probably not.

“Nothing to slight the guys that are out there,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “But Marte and Martin, when we put the club together, obviously with Leonys especially, a big factor in us acquiring him was the defense. I think he’s one of the elite defenders in center field in our game. And when he’s not out there, no matter who you put out there it’s going to be a little bit of a fallback. We’ll continue to weather the storm.”

Marte has been sidelined since spraining his …

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