Sailors come back, jack, do it again, leave White Sox 2-1

Fun fact: I tried to donate blood this week, but couldn’t because my blood pressure (normally well within the normal range) was surprisingly high. Trying to find a reason for the sudden increase, the kind attendant asked: Do you have a stressful job? To which I replied:

Tonight the Mariners pulled out a series win, once again in dramatic fashion, taking a 2-1 win over the White Sox in 10 innings. You might call it Chaos Ball – our old friend – but tonight’s win was, for a one-point extra-inning victory, remarkably unchaotic, despite the many late and close situations. Maybe it’s the historic ineptitude of the White Sox, but these Mariners feel like they’re going to get the job done nonetheless.

“You just know you’re going to get the best version of us in those moments,” Scott Servais said after the game.

Still, it would be nice if we didn’t have to wait so long for these moments. The Mariners had a chance to get to White Sox rookie Jonathan Cannon tonight and failed to convert them into anything score-wise, or even significant pressure on Cannon, who was at 84 pitches in five innings of work, but managed to work until the sixth after getting three quick outs. The Mariners had an opportunity in the second half, when Dominic Canzone crushed a two-out double, but Mitch Garver, on board with a walk, couldn’t come home and Tyler Locklear struck out for end the round. A one-out single by Cal Raleigh in the fourth came to nothing when Luke Raley grounded out on a fielder’s choice and then was caught stealing to end the inning.

But then Luke went ahead and totally redeemed himself:

It’s understandable that the White Sox wanted to wait as long as possible to get to their woeful bullpen, and Cannon was pinned all game, but it’s objectively a bad pitch. However, the bet paid off; Cannon got the next two outs to go as far as he could for the Sox without them being hit with an OSHA violation. Is it possible to give the Sun Hat Award to an opposing player? Because Cannon probably deserves it.

Meanwhile, Bryce Miller also kept the White Sox off the board, although they allowed some early traffic: He had to work around a walk in the first, an infield hit in the second , a double lead on the first throw of the match. third inning and a first walk in the fourth. Each time, however, the nervous Texan ducked out of harm’s way and managed to become more efficient while humming, working seven scoreless innings.

Miller leaned heavily on his four-seamer tonight, throwing it more than half the time, and even more as he got deeper into the game. Of the 49 pitches he threw, batters hit him 33 times, often making weak contact or missing it completely (11 whiffs); he also had seven called hits in the field. Servais said after the game that Miller said he found a little more vertical movement on the field while throwing a bullpen, and he suspected it would be special tonight.

“His four-seamer has been such a dominant pitch for him and he hasn’t really been there the last two times. That’s something we wanted to get back to, staying behind the ball and letting it roll. He had a lot of swings and misses with the four-seam fastball, it was awesome to see.

Austin Voth covered the eighth and was absolutely lights out, maybe the best we’ve seen, hitting to the side, swinging everything and coming within three pitches of an immaculate inning. “Voth has been great over the last month and a half,” Servais said. “He’s really starting to find his rhythm.”

The White Sox turned to Jordan Leasure, last seen giving up a grand slam to Cal Raleigh, to pitch the eighth. He gave up a leadoff single to Tyler Locklear, who advanced to second on Ryan Bliss’ sacrifice fly. Unfortunately, the White Sox – who only seem capable of making amazing defensive plays or dumb plays, not in between – robbed JP Crawford of a single, then caught Locklear at second for an inning-ending double play, a lost opportunity which would have occupied an important place in the next round.

With Andrés Muñoz still on the board and Ryne Stanek down after last night, the Mariners struck out Big Mike Baumann and the White Sox immediately countered with even bigger Luis Robert Jr. It only took one pitch to Robert to undo everything. Bryce Miller and the Mariners had been working, as Robert ambushed the first pitch he saw for a tying home run (surprisingly, only the first home run of his career. Boy LRJ just didn’t play as many matches as you think). A walk and wild pitch later, a runner was on second for Tayler Saucedo, facing left-hander Oscar Colás – except of course he didn’t, because the White Sox immediately struck out on right-hander Danny Mendick. Directness aside, Sauce got Mendick to retire on a comebacker straight to him. Good sauce.

The White Sox brought out Michael Kopech to send the game to extras. The always wild Kopech walked Julio, but also got Rojas to ground out and strike out Cal Raleigh on 99 swings. Luke Raley was the Mariners’ last best chance and unfortunately this time he couldn’t find the winner, hitting the ball hard but straight to the left fielder.

The Mariners summoned Trent Thornton from the bullpen, which is not ideal, as Thornton would pitch two days in a row. A leadoff groundout by Zach DeLoach moved the runner to third, and another groundout — beautifully fielded by Rojas, who brought the runner to third before throwing to first, likely saving the game in the process — did the second withdrawal. The White Sox hit Andrew Benintendi, who was just reinstated from the IL today after rehab, with Achilles tendinitis. Thornton did not welcome him politely to the big boys:

Servais warned us that Thornton is “feisty”: don’t be fooled by his leisure characteristics and lighter stature, the man is a vast bubbling cauldron of Ampedness (okay, maybe more like a crockpot of Ampedness ‘Ampedness).

The White Sox turned to Steven Wilson in the bottom of the tenth, who forced Mitch Garver to fly out in a way that didn’t advance the runner. The Sox then elected to walk Canzone to set up a double play and also access a right-handed bat – Mitch Haniger, hitting Victor Robles, who had come in as a defensive replacement. Haniger immediately fell to an 0-2 count but fought back, narrowly missing what would have been the game-winning double into the right field corner. He fouled pitch after pitch, extending his swing path to reach the sweepers Wilson was shooting from the far edge of home plate and spitting on those that weren’t close to make the count 2-2. In the end, we missed his place, and Haniger didn’t miss it.

“Amazing batting from Mitch,” Servais said.

“This team is starting to gain a lot of momentum (in these recent late, close games). Once you start to get that feeling, okay, we’re tied at ninth, tenth: we’re going to win. We will win. We will win. And that goes a long way when you have this mindset. I think everyone in the stadium feels the same way as our guys in the dugout.

(Tell that to Bloodworks Northwest, Scott.)

This weekend, the Mariners will face a much tougher test with the powerful Texas Rangers offense coming to town. One or two points won’t be enough to keep them in games against Rangers. Mitch Haniger admits the offense hasn’t been up to his standards, while maintaining the same confidence that radiates from the dugout.

“I feel like over the last few weeks we’ve played a lot better, but we always know we can improve and get better,” he said.

“And I think that’s what scares other teams to see that. We know we’re capable of so much more, so that’s a pretty cool feeling…just keep showing up every night, keep winning and keep racking up those wins.