First loves. Fast fashion. The craze for water bottles that weigh more than a third grader. 2024 Mariners baseball. The category is: things that don’t last! And yet, tonight, the Mariners pulled off yet another one-run victory, at home in front of a sellout crowd of 44,924, in the same chaotic way they’ve been winning ballgames lately: late and close. They can’t keep getting away with this, except they do.
The Twins immediately put up a fight, with Logan Gilbert needing 17 pitches to end the first inning. Willi Castro made solid contact to start the game, but stupidly sent it in the direction of Julio Rodríguez, who snatched this .770 xBA shot out of the sky. But like a stern German schoolmaster, the baseball gods punished Gilbert as the next batter, with Carlos Correa throwing a ground ball (.200 xBA) right past JP Crawford for the Twins’ first hit of the game. Trevor Larnach then put up a long fight, requiring nine pitches before Gilbert finally got him to direct a slider to the outfield for the second out. The Twins were just as pesky in the second, with Jose Miranda stroking a base line drive on a misplaced slider and Manuel Margot working a full count before being grounded out on a slider he stole weakly into the infield shallow right.
After that, Gilbert settled in, working back-to-backs in one, two, three innings and working around a two-out double in the fifth, thanks in large part to a well-positioned defense that was able to be Johnny-on-the-spot even though some balls were scorched by the Twins’ hot bats.
Meanwhile, offensively, the Mariners were back to their worst against Twins starting pitcher Bailey Ober. The first time around, Julio Rodríguez started the game strong with a single up the middle, but it was intercepted at first base. Mitch Garver rolled the first pitch he saw at third base. Dominic Canzone got into a bad count against Ober, 0-2, forcing him to cross the zone to try to make contact and eventually getting crushed on a perfectly placed fastball for a third strike. Haniger worked a full count but was thrown out swinging at a cutter, one of four strikeouts the Mariners recorded the first time around.
The second time didn’t go much better. In the fourth, JP Crawford walked, but Julio grounded out chasing a pitch that could be on Bill Spiedel’s underground tour and Cal got stuck on a cutter for an easy flyout. Mitch Garver then drew a two-out walk, bringing up Canzone, whose homework is marked “improved” for taking a full count before flying out for a changeup.
Ober came back in the bottom of the fifth to strike out France and Polanco on seven pitches before Mitch Haniger drew another two-out walk, bless the Mitches. That brought in Josh Rojas, who gets the Gold Star as the day’s top learner. After lining out to left field in his first at-bat, Rojas doubled to right field, and Manny Acta delivered a very risky throw to an already-running Mitch Haniger to score the game’s first run:
Haha! So dangerous! So much fun! Then let’s all jump in that seatbelt-less car with the sticks of dynamite sticking out the exhaust and see how fast we can get down this rut. But sometimes when you play as poorly offensively as the Mariners, you have to catch those brass rings when they’re floating, not to mention risk falling off the ride altogether. Tonight, it worked for the Mariners. Other nights, it might not. In honor of Pride Month, a quote from Jeanette Winterson seems appropriate:
“You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the game that’s irresistible…what you risk reveals what you value.
Alas, that tissue-paper-thin lead wasn’t to last. In the top of the sixth, the Twins finally got some reward for one of those hard-hit balls, as Carlos Correa—and you people, please stop booing him already, it only seems to energize him—fired a curveball that Gilbert intended to go glove side, but it ended up on the front door ding-donging over the left-field wall for a two-run homer. It stung even more because, in addition to giving the Twins the lead, that extra runner was only there because Logan Gilbert made an error in an 0-2 count in the leadoff inning and hit Willi Castro with a pitch, an error that came back to hurt him on Correa’s homer. You win, you lose, you gamble.
Still, Gilbert came out on the lucky side of the BABIP coin tonight, which was in stark contrast to his last miserable outing against the Twins on May 9, when Gilbert said he actually felt like he pitched better but to have obtained less good results (“I had the impression that the ball was going anywhere”). but “I’m not sure people are doing well,” he joked dryly after the game. Tonight, he had to rely heavily on his slider to compensate for other pitches he lacked, particularly his splitter and curveball, both of which wanted to tunnel underground for a long winter’s nap rather than hit the bottom of the zone like they were supposed to. Relevant, off-speed pitches.
“I definitely didn’t feel at my best, I think that was pretty obvious,” Gilbert said after the match. “I didn’t take the lead, but I tried to give us a chance to stay there.”
With Gilbert out, the Mariners bullpen took over, with Austin Voth and Collin Snider holding down the line in the seventh and eighth. Jorge Alcala replaced Ober in the seventh and made short work of his three batters, striking out Dominic Canzone, who missed both pitches he saw at the plate, getting Ty France out and retiring Jorge Polanco on three pitches. Griffin Jax took the eighth and again struggled with the Mariners, walking Haniger — immediately replaced by pinch runner Luke Raley, because you can’t get that chance twice — and giving up a single to Rojas, flipping the lineup. Could they do it? Could they learn?
JP Crawford popped up on an overenthusiastic bunt attempt, conjuring up Julio. Julio actually got a good count, 3-1, before sinking a sinker inside, the same pitch he’s been knocked out on so many times and…what the hell ‘East ???
Well, that’s one way to score a point. “Maybe a little ugly,” Scott Servais said after the game, describing the hitters the Mariners faced against the Twins. “But you get there, and eventually you get it done.”
“That’s what it takes to win ball games.” It might not be pretty, it might not be the way you’d like to write it every night, but you have to work with what you have.
The Twins tried to dispute that Raley was out of the baseline, as Rocco Baldelli loves nothing more than throwing his challenge flag, but Raley was ruled offside. The Twins then opted not to pitch to Cal Raleigh, known for ruining lives, bringing out Mitch Garver. Garver managed to get the ball he needed, but not far enough, bringing up Canzone, who immediately fell into an 0-2 hole before getting knocked out. You win, you lose, you play. So maybe tonight would be the night the magic ran out.
The Mariners brought in Andrés Muñoz in the top of the ninth inning, and he worked very calmly and easily for 1-2-3 innings with two ground outs and one fly out. The Twins responded with Joan Duran, who allowed a single to Ty France in the top of the inning, immediately replaced by Victor Robles, then a perfectly placed hit to Jorge Polanco. This brought in Luke Raley, and once again, with cries of LUUUUUUUUUUKE echoing through the stadium, Raley generously placed a very good drop shot.
This time, alas, Raley’s Good Bunt didn’t result in a run, nor did it result in more chaos on the bases, and Josh Rojas, the Mariners’ offensive hero for the night so far, and JP Crawford, 0-for-3 with a walk on his bobblehead night — he couldn’t get away with it. To the extras, then.
Ryne Stanek had the extras task tonight and got himself out of the Manfred Man mess, getting a shallow flyout and a groundout in the bottom of the inning to leave the runner on third base. The Twins sent Cole Sands out to protect their interests, and he got Julio on the groundout, albeit 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 it, Cal Raleigh:
“Honestly, it wasn’t a good pitch, but I made it, so I kind of got rewarded for making a bad pitch,” Cal said after the game, but he echoed his battery mate: Sometimes you hit good pitches and get nothing, and sometimes you hit bad pitches and become the Bubble Gum King. “That’s the way baseball is sometimes. You just have to put the ball in play — that’s probably not the right way to do it out there, but we take what we can get.”
The Mariners seemed to know they didn’t play their best baseball tonight. Even JP looks a little upset as he runs towards home plate. How did they get away with it? How do they continue to get away with it?
“Just the vibe we have in this ballpark. A lot of it comes from the energy that our fans bring,” Scott Servais said after the game. “They give you a certain boost of energy. It’s great when the place is full. This is a great ballpark. The weather is perfect. And our team is pretty good too.
According to the game notes, the Mariners entered tonight 9-2 in front of a home crowd of over 35,000, which is first among the 14 teams that have tied ten or more times. Tonight, that lead increases to 10-2, a winning percentage of .833. They can’t keep this up…
…but if they can, know that it is partly thanks to you.