Mariners can’t keep getting away with it, do, win 3-2 against Twins in extras
All Hail King Cal
First loves. Fast fashion. The craze for water bottles that weigh more than a third-grader. 2024 Mariners baseball. Category is: things that are not sustainable! And yet somehow tonight, the Mariners yet again came out with another one-run win, at home in front of a sellout crowed of 44,924, in the same chaotic way they’ve been winning ballgames lately: laten and close. They can’t keep getting away with this, except they do.
The Twins put up a fight right away, with Logan Gilbert needing 17 pitches to clear the first inning. Willi Castro made solid contact to lead off the game, but foolishly sent it in the direction of Julio Rodríguez, who snatched that .770 xBA hit out of the sky. But like a stern German schoolmaster, the baseball gods punished Gilbert the next batter, with Carlos Correa sneaking a ground ball (.200 xBA) right past J.P. Crawford for the Twins’ first hit of the game. Trevor Larnach then put up a lengthy fight, requiring nine pitches before Gilbert finally got him to direct a slider to the outfield for the second out. The Twins were similarly pesky in the second, with Jose Miranda stroking a line drive base hit on a poorly-located slider and Manuel Margot working a full count before being retired on a slider he flew weakly into shallow right field.
After that, Gilbert settled down, working back-to-back one-two-three innings and working around a two-out double in the fifth, thanks in large part to a well-positioned defense, able to be Johnny-on-the-spot even as some balls came scalded off the Twins’ hot bats.
Meanwhile, offensively, the Mariners reverted to their worst selves against Twins starter Bailey Ober. The first time through the order, Julio Rodríguez started the game strong with a one-out single up the middle, only to be picked off first base. Mitch Garver rolled over the first pitch he saw to third base. Dominic Canzone got himself into a bad count against Ober, 0-2, forcing him to reach across the zone to try to make contact and eventually get picked apart on a perfectly-placed fastball for a called strike three. Haniger worked a full count but struck out swinging chasing a cutter, one of the four strikeouts the Mariners recorded the first time through the order.
The second time through didn’t go much better. In the fourth, J.P. Crawford did work a walk, but Julio struck out chasing a pitch that could be featured on Bill Spiedel’s Underground Tour and Cal got jammed on a cutter for an easy flyout. Mitch Garver then worked a two-out walk, bringing up Canzone, who gets his homework marked “improved” for working a full count before flying out on a changeup.
Ober came right back in the bottom of the fifth to punch out France and Polanco on a combined seven pitches before Mitch Haniger worked another two-out walk, blessed be the Mitches. That brought up Josh Rojas, who gets the Gold Star for Best Learner of the Day. After lining out to left field in his first at-bat, Rojas cranked a double into right field, and Manny Acta executed a very risky send of an already-underway Mitch Haniger to score the first run of the ballgame:
Haha! So dangerous! So fun! Next let’s all jump in this seatbeltless car with the sticks of dynamite sticking out of the tailpipe and see how fast we can go down this blind alley. But sometimes, when you’re playing as poorly offensively as the Mariners are, you have to snatch at those brass rings when they float by, nevermind the risk that you might fall off the merry-go-round entirely. Tonight it worked out for the Mariners. Other nights, it might not. In honor of Pride Month, a quote from Jeanette Winterson seems apropos:
“You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible...what you risk reveals what you value.”
Alas, though, that tissue-paper-thin lead was not to last. In the top of the sixth, the Twins finally got a payoff for one of those hard-hit balls, as Carlos Correa—and will you people please stop booing him already, it seems to only power him up—pulled a curveball that Gilbert intended to get glove side but wound up ding-dong front door instead over the left field wall for a two-run homer. It stung extra because, besides giving the Twins the lead, that extra runner was only there because Logan Gilbert made a mistake in an 0-2 count leading off the inning and hit Willi Castro with a pitch, a mistake that came back to hurt him on Correa’s homer. You win, you lose, you play.
Still, Gilbert did come out on the lucky side of the BABIP coin tonight—in stark contrast to his last, miserable outing against the Twins back on May 9th, when Gilbert said he actually felt like he pitched better but got worse results (“I felt like the ball went anywhere but at people,” he joked drily postgame). Tonight, he had to lean heavily on his slider to make up for some other pitches that were “missing”—specifically his splitter and curveball, both of which wanted to tunnel underground for a long winter’s nap rather than nick the bottom of the zone like they were supposed to. Relatable, off-speed pitches.
“I definitely didn’t feel my best, I think that was pretty obvious” said Gilbert postgame. “I didn’t come out with the lead, but tried to give us a chance to stay in it.”
With Gilbert out of the game, the Mariners bullpen took over, with Austin Voth and Collin Snider holding the line in the seventh and eighth. Jorge Alcala replaced Ober in the seventh and made short work of his three hitters, striking out Dominic Canzone, who missed both of the two pitches he saw on the plate, getting Ty France to pop out, and striking out Jorge Polanco on three pitches. Griffin Jax took the eighth and struggled again with the Mariners, walking Haniger—immediately replaced by pinch-runner Luke Raley, because you can’t get that lucky twice—and giving up a single to Rojas, turning the lineup over. Could they do it? Could they learn?
J.P. Crawford popped out on an over-eager bunt attempt, bringing up Julio. Julio actually worked himself into a good count, 3-1, before going after a sinker inside, the same pitch he’s grounded out on so many times and...what’s this???
Well, that’s one way to score a run. “Maybe a little bit ugly,” Scott Servais said postgame, describing the at-bats the Mariners put up against the Twins. “But you make it happen, and finally you break through.”
“That’s what it takes to win ball games. It may not be pretty, it may not be the way you’d like to draw it up every night, but you gotta go with what you got.”
The Twins tried to challenge that Raley was out of the baseline, because Rocco Baldelli loves nothing more than throwing his challenge flag, but Raley was ruled safe. The Twins then opted not to pitch to Cal Raleigh, known to ruin lives, bringing up Mitch Garver. Garver did get the fly ball he needed, but not deep enough, bringing up Canzone, who immediately fell into an 0-2 hole before striking out. You win, you lose, you play. So perhaps tonight would be the night when the magic ran out.
The Mariners brought in Andrés Muñoz for the top of the ninth, and he worked a very calm, easy 1-2-3 inning with two groundouts and a flyout. The Twins countered with Joan Duran, who allowed a leadoff single to Ty France—immediately pinch-ran for by Victor Robles—and then a perfectly-placed bunt base hit to Jorge Polanco. That brought up Luke Raley, and once again, to cries of LUUUUUUUUUUKE echoing through the stadium, Raley unselfishly laid down a Very Good Bunt of his own.
This time, alas, Raley’s Good Bunt did not result in a run, nor more chaos on the bases, and Josh Rojas—hero of the Mariners offense for the night up to that point—and J.P. Crawford—0-for-3 with a walk on his bobblehead night—couldn’t come through. To extras, then.
Ryne Stanek had the extras duty tonight and got out of the scrape of the Manfred Man, getting a shallow flyout and inning-ending groundout to strand the runner at third. The Twins sent Cole Sands out to protect their interests, and he got Julio to ground out, although in a way that advanced the runner, bringing up Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ Mr. Clutch, for the potential walk-off. And wouldn’t you know, Cal Raleigh:
“It honestly wasn’t a great pitch to swing at, but I swung at it, so I kind of got rewarded for swinging at a bad pitch,” said Cal postgame, but echoed his batterymate: sometimes you swing at good pitches and get nothing, and sometimes you swing at bad pitches and get to be the Bubble Gum King. “That’s how baseball is sometimes. You just have to put the ball in play—definitely probably not the right way to do it there, but we take what we can get.”
The Mariners seemed to know they didn’t play their best baseball tonight. Even J.P. looks a little chagrined running across home plate there. How then, did they get away with it? How do they keep getting away with it?
“Just the vibe we have in this ballpark. A lot of that comes from the energy that our fans bring,” said Scott Servais postgame. “They do give you a certain boost of energy. It’s great when the place is full. This is an awesome ballpark. The weather’s perfect. And our team’s pretty good too.”
Per the game notes, the Mariners came into tonight 9-2 in front of home crowds of 35K+ , which is first among the 14 teams that have drawn that number ten or more times. Tonight that lead grows to 10-2, or an .833 winning percentage. They can’t keep this up...
...but if they can, know that part of it is thanks to you.