Josh Naylor entered Monday with zero extra-base hits across 66 plate appearances, a batting average equal to his slugging percentage at.102 and just two RBI on the season. He left with two home runs, five RBI and a four-game sweep of the Houston Astros.

Naylor homered in each of his first two at-bats, connecting off Astros right-hander Mike Burrows in the first inning and then again in the third. The first was a pulled 0-1 fastball that cleared the right-field wall at a Statcast-projected 365 feet. The second was no gift—111.5 mph exit velocity, 433 feet, landing in The J-Rod Squad section beyond center field.

Those two blasts drove in each of Seattle's first five runs and more than tripled his season RBI total. Naylor entered the day with two RBI in 16 starts. He finished with seven.

Both swings featured a pronounced leg kick that was absent the day before. Naylor was characteristically blunt about it when asked postgame. "I don't like it," he said. Then he added: "I think you try things sometimes and hope it works, and if it doesn't, try something else. I think this game is a big trial-and-error game. You work your hardest to be the best you can be."

He elaborated on the decision to experiment. "Because why not? I mean, what's the worst that can happen, I go 0-for-4 again? I've done that already. We've been there, done that type of thing. So, yeah, I guess sometimes trying something new kind of eliminates a process in your mind of thinking about things within your normal swing base. So I tried that, and it worked out today. Maybe I'll stick with it."

A leg kick generates more lower-body load before the swing, which can produce more power. The tradeoff is timing—a hitter who is even slightly late or early will swing through pitches at a higher rate. Naylor's strikeout rate entering Monday was 17.6 percent, well within an acceptable range, suggesting the drought was not about contact ability. The power simply hadn't come.

It had nearly come once before. On April 4, Jo Adell of the Los Angeles Angels robbed Naylor of a home run—one of three home runs Adell took away in a single night in that game.

Naylor's slump was the worst active power drought in Seattle's lineup to open the season. His entering ledger of 6-for-59 had made him a drag on a lineup that signed him to anchor the cleanup spot. The Mariners gave him a five-year, $92.5 million free-agent deal after he produced during a stretch following his acquisition at last year's trade deadline. Last season he slugged.462. None of that showed up through his first 16 starts this year.

Monday showed why the investment made sense. Naylor has hit cleanup in each of his 16 starts, and when he is right, the lineup is deeper and harder to pitch around. His process stayed consistent even when results didn't. "It's a process. It's a long season," he said. "I always say to the guys that you'd rather start slow and end good than start good and end slow. I just try to put in the work every day, regardless of the results."

George Kirby benefited from that cushion and pitched into the eighth inning for the second straight start. With his pitch count at 95, Kirby lobbied manager Dan Wilson to let him face one final batter—Yordan Alvarez. Wilson agreed. Kirby walked Alvarez on four pitches but exited to an ovation. "I got a little help from J.P. [Crawford], yelling, 'Keep him in, keep him in!'" Kirby said. "But yeah, I'm glad Dan believed in me right there."

The sweep carries weight. Seattle secured just its second four-game sweep of Houston in 16 such series since the Astros moved to the American League in 2013. The offense that produced it wasn't built in one big afternoon—it ran across the full homestand. Of Seattle's 69 runs scored on the season entering the day, 29 came in the past four days. The Mariners posted a.422 on-base percentage during the four-game series against Houston. Over their first 13 games, that number was.280.

"It was awesome," Naylor said. "We hit for a long time."

The Mariners are now one game back of the Athletics in the AL West, a division that has stayed tight. A four-game sweep of a division rival during a stretch when the offense finally woke up is exactly the kind of run that changes a team's season.