DETROIT -- The Mariners won’t win any prizes for beating a Tigers team with the worst record in the Majors, but they were plenty happy to head out of the Motor City with a 7-2 victory on Thursday afternoon.\n\nAfter dropping a 3-2 decision on Wednesday, Seattle returned to its Detroit dominance with a 14-hit performance.
Here are three things to like from the Mariners’ first series win since sweeping a four-game set from the Tigers in Seattle at the end of July:\n\n**Mallex making things happen**\n\nMariners leadoff man
“Mallex has a tendency to make a lot happen, no matter where he is on the field,” said manager Scott Servais. “Offensively, he did some good things. The quality of his at-bats has been really good. In the outfield today, maybe not quite so good. But today’s game was about our offense kind of covering up some of the other mistakes we made.”\n\nThe Mariners seem to feed of Smith’s buoyant nature, and he continued his second-half bounceback by getting on base four times and causing havoc.\n\n“We’re just having fun, enjoying playing with one another and feeding off each other’s energy,” Smith said. “We took a tough loss and turned around and got a win. That’s nothing but team chemistry and just playing hard.”
**Seager’s surge continues**\n\n
“I wasn’t physically able to separate like I needed to and didn’t have the ankle mobility and thoracic mobility. I just got too tight,” Seager said. “That was the whole point of this winter, and right now, it’s definitely working.”\n\nAfter missing the first two months following hand surgery and then getting off to a frigid start, Seager has hit .375 over his past 20 games to hike his average from .186 to .242. He credits hitting coach Tim Laker with helping him drive the ball more to left field as well.\n\n“He’s really good,” Seager said. “He’s got me in better positions, where if you catch it a little deeper, you’re able to actually hit it with authority that way and keep it down. There’s been a couple line drives that way that I’ve been happy with.”
**Opener strategy proving successful**\n\nWhen the Mariners first started experimenting with the opener role in front of