What a difference a week makes!

Or even a day: 24 hours ago, I was mentally drafting a post on that phase of the season (inevitable in Mariner fandom) where even the most diehard fan feels a need to disengage from their daily obsession with the team in search of pursuits and interests that do not damage their mental health so much. Since securing back-to-back walk-off wins against a very good Twins team last weekend, the Mariners reeled to five straight losses to teams nowhere near the playoffs (Baltimore and the Angels), including a whopping three straight by exactly one run. I had publicly called both Thursday’s 4-3 loss to Baltimore and the entire series in Anaheim “must-wins.”

Worse, the Mariners had leads in the last 4 of the 5 losses. On Saturday, they opened 4-0 behind a 1st inning 3-run home run from serious AL MVP contender Cal Raleigh (who later hit his MLB-leading 26th home run and stands a staggering THREE in front of perennial MVP candidates/winners Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge), only to lose 8-6. Two Fridays ago, the Mariners held a 3.5 game lead in the division. They entered yesterday’s day game 3.5 games behind Houston.

Among the many woes of the M’s recent swoon was the return of George Kirby, who at times over the last two years has been the best of the Mariners’ “oops all aces” rock-star staff. You can say he was rushed back after 3 hasty rehab starts in Tacoma, or you can say he missed all of spring training and that Tacoma doesn’t teach you how to get Major Leaguers out. Maybe he just had to take his lumps, but he entered yesterday 0-3 with an 8.56 ERA and (shockingly for baseball history’s least walk-prone pitcher – seriously) 4 walks in 3 starts. It was easy to start penning in our sixth straight loss, second straight sweep to a bad team, and precipitous June swoon that might end talk of the playoffs in 2025 altogether.

Then we started the game with both (a) a first-inning run, which actually hasn’t helped lately and (b) an 0/11 with runners in scoring position! Getting 11 plate appearances with RISP is the sign of an amazing game, but this was a stat we had in the fourth, clinging to a 1-0 lead when we easily could have already been mounting a blowout.

The biggest miracle of the game so far, however, wasn’t the George Kirby was shutting out the Angels and mowing them down with mostly strikeouts. It was that Julio Rodriguez was on the field a day after exiting with heavy assistance having been called out by getting hit by a live ball, what should have been an RBI single from Arozarena to knock him in and maybe prevent the collapse that led to our fifth straight loss. It was the second time this year that the Mariners had made a basepaths out by getting hit by a batted ball, something I never recall seeing live in my prior 37 years of fandom. When it happened to Garver, he wasn’t hurt, but Julio looked like he’d broken a bone and might miss months. For him to be in the lineup the next day and playing centerfield was a stroke of luck usually reserved for other teams.

Back to Kirby: he was carrying a perfect game through 3 2/3 into a 1-2 count on Mike Trout. Trout battled and eventually singled, his first real success in an uncharacteristically disastrous series for him against the M’s (he finished 1/11 with 2 walks and – spoiler alert! – the series-ending strikeout). Taylor Ward worked a 2-0 count to follow and parked the 3rd pitch 432 feet into the rocks, a blast so mammoth that Randy Arozarena didn’t even think about budging from his ready position in left field. The old movie was back on: wasted opportunities from the Mariners and untimely pitching leading to another one-run loss.

We were saved from this scenario by the two least likely bats of the year: Garver and Solano. With one out in the next inning (top of the fifth), Randy chose watching instead of moving again, this time admiring an opposite-way blast off his bat that would have been a home run in several parks (Yankee Stadium especially comes to mind) and banged off the mid-point of the wall in this one. He got a long single for a hit that should have been his third consecutive double (!!). I yelled at the TV “okay, steal second to make up for it.” He almost immediately did. Then Garver came up, making me cringe in fear. He immediately took two strikes in the zone, doing exactly what he’s been doing all season. He watched another pitch that could have been called strike three go for a ball. And then he smacked a solid single through the hole that Randy had to freeze on, keeping him at third. Runners on the corners, one out.

Dylan Moore, who has been awful lately after an incredible start to his season, struck out. And that left things up to Jorge Polanco, batting from the right side. Polanco, who they would pinch hit with terrible players (often Solano) most of the year to spare him from hitting from the right side. Polanco, who came into the AB just 4/20 from the right side. Who’d struck out badly against Anderson in the third. And instead he ripped a line drive game-tying single that kept runners on the corners for… Solano. By far our worst hitter all year. I was relieved that we’d tied it and awaited the strikeout or weak pop that was sure to come. Instead, the first two pitches missed badly and I started yelling at the TV for Donovan to take three more pitches, load the bases on a hopeful walk, and let Ben Williamson have a crack. Instead, he swung at the third pitch (which was down Broadway) and hit a shockingly solid line drive, plating Garver for what would prove to be the winning run.

All we had to do now was get 15 more outs. Thanks to Kirby, Brash, and Munoz, that was no problem. They would scatter 9 strikeouts and 6 in-play outs to do it, allowing just one batter to reach base in the 5 innings, a terrible 5-pitch walk to open the 9th by Munoz against PH Jorge Soler, one that allowed Mike Trout to bat as the winning run in the inning and make us terrified Munoz would blow his third straight save and surrender earned runs for the third straight contest after opening the year without any for months. Instead, Mitch Garver walked out to the mound after ball one to Neto, Munoz responded with four straight strikes, and Trout was dominated in five pitches to end the game on his second straight K.

Dance time! Can you believe it? For context, it was Cole Young’s first postgame dance after getting called up on June 1st! Admittedly his first two games were walk-off wins, so we don’t dance then, but he was badly out of practice on June 8th.

The M’s are still in trouble. They’re 2.5 out, their playoff chances have cratered from 90% to 55% (really, it’s irresponsible to say that any team has a 90% chance in May, but that’s another rant for another day), and they haven’t won a series against a team with a losing record since they won the rubber match against the White Sox on May 21. Coincidentally, that was tied for their apex in the standings, 3.5 up on a weakened AL West. Tonight, they open a 3-game set in Phoenix against an Arizona team that also has a losing record on the year, and also comes in careening from a three-game sweep at the hands of the middling Reds. They’re opening with their two most consistent starters. They really really really should win this series.

Did you catch that? I’m invested again, just like that.

Damn.

Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 17
Wire-to-Wire Wins: 16
Comeback Losses: 18
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 13

Multi-Homer Games: 16-8
Single-Homer Games: 14-8
No-Homer Games: 3-15

One-Run Games: 13-10
Extra-Innings Games: 4-5
Shutouts: 1-3

Record When Scoring >5 Runs: 14-5
Record When Scoring 2-5 Runs: 19-15
Record When Scoring <2 Runs: 0-11

Total Games in First Place: 30

Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 8-13
Listened on Radio: 8-4
Mixed TV/Radio: 13-10
Followed on Gameday: 3-3
Limited/No Engagement: 1-1

Note: Making the win yesterday even more improbable, it was the Mariners’ 3rd win in 18 games when they didn’t hit a homer. Maybe because Cal Raleigh got a true off-day. The M’s are 30-16 (.652) when they leave the yard at least once. I don’t love the conventional wisdom of the modern game, but it’s hard to argue with the data.