It’s hard to understand how badly you need a win until you get one. This principle probably applies to a lot more than baseball, but I’m here to talk about baseball because baseball is a beautiful sport when it all works out. It can be an ugly sport, a dangerous sport, a befuddling and maddening sport, but we watch and listen and care because when it’s beautiful, it’s damn near perfect.
I couldn’t even face writing yesterday after the Mariners rallied in the 9th to tie the game, a game they needed to avoid getting swept in their first series since the Dodgers series in August 2024 that ended Scott Servais’s Mariner career. And then the only functional impact of extending the game was Victor Robles’s shoulder colliding with and getting tangled in a right field foul-territory net after he made a spectacular catch for the second out of the bottom of the frame. The play may have ended Victor’s season (as I write, we still don’t know if it’s 10 days or 10 months that will be lost to his dislocated shoulder after he was literally carted off the field) and it prolonged the game for exactly one (1) pitch as the next pitch found outfield grass and yielded the second walk-off of the series for the scorching hot Giants. It was all too heartbreaking. My son (4) drew a get-well note for Robles but I couldn’t imagine what we could write in a get-well note for the Mariners. April is no time to say “wait till next year.” And yet…
Returning home to face Houston seemed like do-or-die. Now look, these are not your traditional Astros. Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman are still tearing it up… for Chicago and Boston, respectively. Verlander and Pressly are gone (though we always disproportionately shelled both of late). Altuve flirted with left field, failed abysmally, and is now shakily adjusting back to second. Yeah, they signed Christian Walker and still have the deadly Yordan Alvarez, but arguably the only team in the AL more disappointed entering tonight than your Seattle Mariners was the 4-5 Houston Astros (shoutout, I guess, to the 4-6 Baltimore Orioles as well).
A good time for Logan Gilbert to spin 5 1/3 no-hit innings, spoiled only by Gary Hill Jr. (I listened entirely on the radio, multi-tasking with overtime work) announcing the no-hitter plainly mere seconds before Altuve punished him by parking the next pitch over the wall to end the no-no, the shutout, and Hill’s broadcasting career. Part of the beauty of baseball is its traditions, jinxes, and curses, and I have never seen such speedy retribution in my life.
It was all the more tragic because he had just gotten over being Felixed again as Ryan Bliss hit his first dinger of the season, a 2-run shot with the torrid Dylan Moore aboard, to spot him a cushion that felt like 7 runs. Suddenly it was 2-1, he was looking surprisingly vulnerable in the 6th, and we were going to be down another broadcaster after losing two vets just this past off-season.
He didn’t make it out of the inning, but he did manage to walk Yordan Alvarez for a second time to neutralize him before giving way to Trent Thornton, who promptly held the lead for an inning and a third of flawless pitching.
In the eighth, Santos managed to load the bases (single-sac bunt-wild pitch-walk-steal-lineout-intentional walk to Yordan) with two outs and only Julio’s incredible arm on the lineout (2nd and 3rd, 1 out) kept the lead intact. Christian Walker bounced a 2-1 pitch at Dylan Moore who let it slip through for a 2-run error and flashes of the whole San Francisco series (and what feel like decades of abuse by the Astros) flashed before our eyes. Lead gone. Dignity gone. Hope dying fast.
Just as the M’s have been doing for 5 years in these situations, though, they immediately struck back with baserunners, with Dylan redemptively working a walk, dangerously stealing on ball 3 of what would be another walk to pinch-hitter Miles Mastrobuoni (still to be questioned why Wilson lifted Bliss the at-bat after his 2-run homer, but hey, worked out) and the JP Crawford laying down a beautiful sac bunt to give us our own 2nd and 3rd 1 out chance with our franchise player coming to the plate.
He promptly struck out. Juli-no! That at-bat took us from likely to win (54.4% WPA) to very likely to lose (32.6% WPA). But WPA didn’t realize how hot Jorge Polanco is.
Of course he banged the next ball back up the middle, into center field, plated two, and made every Mariner fan erupt with joy and then a dogged “Give me Munoz!”
Munoz wanted to screw around by trying to give up a single (almost identical to Polanco’s) to lead off the 9th, but JP Crawford reminded us all why he has a gold glove with a circus play on the wrong side of second in which he flipped making the off-balance throw from his knees. This energized Senor Smoke and the rest was history: a 3-pitch K and a full-count groundout. We have 4 wins on the year and Munoz has 4 saves.
Last year, I was all about “it’s early!” This year, I haven’t had the heart, what with the near-misses and the poor play and the first sweep since Servais and the injury and everything. It hasn’t felt early. It’s felt tired and familiar and just terrible. But today was the kind of game that builds momentum, that excises demons, that does everything except actually log a win for Logan Gilbert (0-1, 2.55 ERA, 25 K in 17 2/3 IP, 0.62 WHIP).
And so in the interests of this budding hope, I have some suggestions for Dan Wilson. Because our ability to win is a fragile bird and must be fostered carefully.
Mariner To-Do List
1. Stop Batting Julio Leadoff. He hates it, he’s said he hates it, he doesn’t perform well there. He went 0/4 with 2 Ks tonight at leadoff. One of the Ks cost us 21.8% WPA by itself! And nearly the game, of course. He’s off to a good start when he normally is bad in April, but that will go away if he leads off the rest of the month.
2. Start Batting Dylan Moore Leadoff. He should be in the lineup every day, he’s earned it, he’s hitting righties as well. He’s hitting .381 with an OPS north of 1.100! This is Dylan’s time and a lineup with him and Polanco (.417, 1.107) at the top can almost make up for not having Victor Robles for a while (please please please be closer to 10 days than 10 months). Yes, it should be Moore-Polanco-Julio.
3. Bench/DFA Rowdy Tellez. I’m so glad he feasted on AA pitching in Spring Training. It was fun while it lasted, which wasn’t long. His OPS is .199. His OPS is .199. He’s done. He cannot be getting Major League at-bats for a team that is trying to win. He absolutely cannot keep hitting sixth in the lineup! Stop it.
4. Keep Stealing! Despite the slightly ill-advisedness of Moore’s bag, he was joined by Polanco and Arozarena getting their first stolen bases each tonight, making it 3/3. Yeah, there was that one game where we kinda ran our way out of chances, but T-Mobile is a great place to put the game in motion and we have always done our best when we are racking up steals. (Coleman in ’95 and Ichiro in ’01 especially come to mind.)
5. Free Dom Canzone! This is a circumstantial pick, but with Raley and Moore getting looks at 1B and Tellez moving out, right field is unfortunately free. And Dom Canzone got glasses in the off-season and suddenly looks like he can see the ball again. Raley has been uninspired and often bad so far. Dom can be a spark of power and vitality that we need. Get him some starts and reap the rewards.
Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 3
Wire-to-Wire Wins: 1
Comeback Losses: 3
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 4
Multi-Homer Games: 1-3
Single-Homer Games: 3-1
No-Homer Games: 0-3
One-Run Games: 3-2
Extra-Innings Games: 0-1
Record When Scoring >4 Runs: 0-2
Record When Scoring 2-4 Runs: 4-2
Record When Scoring <2 Runs: 0-3
Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 1-5
Listened on Radio: 1-0
Mixed TV/Radio: 2-2
