This one was wild.

I’ve been less engaged with the M’s on this trip home in my haste to help my mother move out of her home of 26 years: interviewing realtors, trying to match paint lids, shlepping boxes to storage. But I’ve been keeping an eye via Gameday when possible and today (truly a morning game Mountain time!) got to listen to nearly the whole contest while working on aforementioned storage.

Suffice it to say that when I tuned in and it was already 2-0 Reds, I thought we were in for another Hancock Special. But it turns out those were the only runs he’d surrender in 5 innings of very effective work, in which he tossed just 73 pitches and left in line for the win thanks to a 2-run blast by Luke “Goodbye Glasses” Raley and a little 5th inning chaos ball with a reached-on-error run followed by a sac fly.

After some truly heroic bullpen tightroping by a surprisingly off Speier and Snider (1 IP combined), Vargas surrendered a run to cut the lead to one and Thornton had to bail him out with a crucial bases-loaded K to end the 7th. But the M’s answered right back in the 8th with an RBI double from a resurgent JP Crawford (more on this resurgence later). At 5-3 with 2 innings of pitching left, things were looking relatively stable: Thornton to stay on for the 8th and Munoz to polish off the 9th.

But Thornton didn’t return. He’d chucked just 4 pitches but was replaced with a shocking leverage appearance from Bazardo. This bizzare-do decision by Dan Wilson did not pay off as after a quick first out, he went single-walk-walk to load the bases for former M Jake Fraley who promptly unloaded on an 0-1 pitch for his first home run of the year, a back-breaking grand slam that put the Reds in front for the first time since 2-0. With just a frame left, 7-5 felt insurmountable.

So of course the Mariners immediately surmounted. They beautifully channeled the September 2022 Rodriguez/Suarez walk-off against Atlanta with back-to-back jacks from a scorching-hot Cal Raleigh (more on this heat later) and a surging Randy Arozarena (more on this surge later) in the first 5 pitches of the inning! And while they didn’t add on then and had to rely on Casey Legumina to preserve a tie, I somehow knew after Randy’s blast that they would absolutely win. Maybe it was just the echo of the late-season 2022 heroics. Maybe it was just that this team had immediately answered every time they needed to all day.

Maybe (if you check the chart at the bottom) it was the confidence of knowing that I had only listened to this game on the radio and the M’s were 4-0 in such games for me. Long live superstition!

The 10th started amazingly strong, with Miles Mastrobuoni trying to bunt but reaching anyway and JP Crawford checking in with an RBI infield single. You absolutely have to get 1 in every extra inning in Manfred’s MLB, but the M’s were poised to add on, which is even more essential. Julio, who clearly absolutely loathes hitting leadoff (and has essentially said as much after always struggling there) nearly grounded into a devastating double-play, but legged out a safe call at first to put runners on the corners with one out. He promptly stole 2nd and then Mitch Garver worked a 5-pitch walk. Yep, Cal up with the bases loaded after he hit 6 homers in 6 games, all with the new torpedo bat. Are you kidding?

But he struck out on 3 pitches, which can sometimes happen.

Who loves bases loaded more than Randy Arozarena this week? Absolutely no one. He spanked a high bouncing hustle double up the middle, plating 2 and securing a lead that we all knew Munoz wouldn’t blow, 10-7. It was almost an afterthought when Solano reached on an error and tacked on the extra notch. 11-7 made us wonder if Munoz would even still come in, but he was ready for his 8th save so he grabbed a very quick 1-2-3 GF without the save all the same, and the Mariners finally won an extra-innings contest.

There are a lot of notes for this game I could write with the M’s finally getting above .500 for the first time since 1-0! They’ve won 3 straight series, including sweeping the Texas team that immediately reheated after losing in Seattle and swept the Angels, who are back where they belong below us in the standings. They’re in a playoff position as of today’s end, admittedly with 88% of the season left to go, but still, WC2 would be a big improvement on the last two seasons. And guess where they’d play if they made that playoff with today’s standings? 3 games in Toronto. Site of our last playoff series win. Site of our next regular season series, starting tomorrow!

But I promised to get to JP, Cal, and Randy. These three all got off to rough starts in the season. Nine games into the year, all 3 were not just below the Mendoza line, they were all hitting below .168 (JP led the trio at .167). They have turned it around since, big time.

In the last 7 games:
JP Crawford is hitting .364 with an OBP of .481 and an OPS of .936.
Cal Raleigh is hitting .233 with an OBP of .303, an OPS of 1.170 and 6 HR.
Randy Arozarena is hitting .318 with an OBP of .531, an OPS of 1.259, 5 SB, and 7 bases loaded RBI.

These guys are raking.

Is it any wonder the Mariners are 6-1 in that span?

Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 6
Wire-to-Wire Wins: 4
Comeback Losses: 4
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 5

Multi-Homer Games: 4-4
Single-Homer Games: 6-1
No-Homer Games: 0-4

One-Run Games: 4-3
Extra-Innings Games: 1-2

Record When Scoring >5 Runs: 3-2
Record When Scoring 2-5 Runs: 7-3
Record When Scoring <2 Runs: 0-4

Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 1-5
Listened on Radio: 5-0
Mixed TV/Radio: 3-3
Followed on Gameday: 1-1