The last two games have been some of the most satisfying in recent memory for the Mariners, well beyond just the best of this season. And they’ve come with some extra-special personal notes for me as well.
I didn’t recap it as I was on the verge of a trip and the day games always somehow defy my ability to write about them (maybe because I still have waking life tasks when they end, unlike the night games), but the 7-6 comeback to win the first season of the year on Wednesday against Houston was truly magical. It wasn’t just that the M’s were down 5-0 in the eighth and stormed back with 7 runs in two innings to win. It wasn’t just that they hit a grand slam. It wasn’t just that Julio hit a clutch opposite-way 2-run double. It wasn’t just a walk-off-walk that showed so much plate discipline. And it wasn’t even just continuing the excellent run against Houston since 2022, this time relegating them near the bottom of the AL West.
It was also that I got to watch the entire rally with my son on the night before I would leave him for ten days to travel home to help my mom ready her house for sale. And that he was just as excited as I was about every play, especially the grand slam and all the necessary hits and walks in the 9th that overcome an unfortunate insurance run for Houston in the top of the frame that seemed enough to secure their victory. Wins against the Astros are always satisfying, but little mirror images of what they did to us in Game 1 of the 2022 ALDS are the absolute sweetest. Getting to share that with a child who I’ve doomed to root for the Mariners is a memory I will long cherish.
Tonight’s game was not nearly so magical, but was just as necessary and satisfying from a different angle. Texas has established itself as the team to beat in the AL West in 2025, not just because the Astros have taken a step back but also because Bruce Bochy is their manager and it’s two years since they won the World Series. Bochy’s teams never make the playoffs the year after going to the World Series, but he was the Giants’ manager when they achieved one of the most uncanny feats in MLB history winning 3 of 5 World Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, all while missing the playoffs in the intervening odd-numbered years. 2023 was his first year in Texas and he promptly won their first franchise World Series. Uncanny.
The Mariners came out swinging, getting a homer in the 1st from Jorge Polanco, the world’s hottest batter (3/4 tonight to up his average to .419 and OPS to 1.148!) and in the 2nd from Rowdy Tellez, the world’s coldest batter (1/4 tonight to up his average to .083 and OPS to .356). The Rangers scratched a run in the 4th and threatened for more, but when Bryce Miller shut them down and the M’s immediately answered with a clutch two-out RBI single to plate Leo Rivas (who stole second and didn’t miss a beat from the Ryan Bliss he replaced on our roster after Bliss’s tragic 5-month bicep injury), it started to feel like we were destined to own this game.
Miller pitched through and out of trouble all evening, culminating in a 5th inning escape that just spared his chance at the win on exactly 100 pitches, reaffirming the sense of destiny. But of course, he’s a Mariners starter, which means his road to a successful season will be paved with No Decisions.
Trent Thornton has already been overused and tonight he almost walked the tightrope that Miller set as a precedent, then fell catastrophically. He put the first two runners on with a double and a plunk, then got an utterly clutch double-play to put a runner at 3rd with 2 outs. Josh Jung parked the first pitch he saw after that over the wall, but I mean it was just barely over the wall. It fooled everyone, the radio announcers I was listening to on the back porch with my mom, the Texas announcers I just heard when watching the replay to confirm how close it was, even Luke Raley who almost caught the ball. Baseball is famously a game of inches, but this one really hurt. Is Texas just better than we are?
Not tonight. The rest of our bullpen did its normal thing and in the 8th, (who else?) Polanco singled in front of a Cal Raleigh who did a “pitch from Acevedoooooo” impression by blasting it near the Hit It Here Cafe for a definitive 2-run bomb with only the 9th to play. The next 3 M’s went down so quickly it was almost like everyone wanted to fast-forward to the Give Me Munoz Moment. And despite a shaky start, thanks to another tailor-made double-play, it didn’t disappoint. Munoz has 5 saves in 5 chances, a 0.00 ERA in 7 IP with 10 Ks and 4 walks in the young season. You really can’t ask for more from your closer.
The Mariners were simply the better team on every metric, on a night they were running their 4th starter (who clearly didn’t have his best stuff) against a 2-time Cy Young Award winner in T-Mobile Park. They had more power, better defense, more clutch, and absolutely more shutdown pitching with RISP. They made the Rangers look like the Mariners with a 2/12 RISP average. The M’s notched 1/3 in limited chances, mostly limited by their propensity for the longball in their infamously capacious home field.
Meanwhile, I was on my capacious home field, under the lights of the back porch that my late father put up for nights just such as these. My mother and I listened to baseball and chatted and heard a western screech owl actually screech landing in a tree above us, something she’d never heard despite a decade as an avid birder. We watched the full moon rise and missed my father and heard home run calls from the same Rick Rizzs who narrated my late childhood and early adolescence on the north coast of Oregon.
The country is disintegrating and it makes it feel like the world is falling apart. It’s hard to ignore, sometimes necessary to compartmentalize. But we still have baseball, for now, and it’s both beautiful in itself and colors the rest of our life with a vivid touchstone of joy. It’s hard to be an American in 2025 and harder to be an American Mariner fan at any time, but I am so grateful for all of it, for nights like tonight.
Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 4
Wire-to-Wire Wins: 2
Comeback Losses: 3
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 5
Multi-Homer Games: 2-3
Single-Homer Games: 4-1
No-Homer Games: 0-4
One-Run Games: 4-3
Extra-Innings Games: 0-2
Record When Scoring >5 Runs: 1-2
Record When Scoring 2-5 Runs: 5-2
Record When Scoring <2 Runs: 0-4
Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 1-5
Listened on Radio: 2-0
Mixed TV/Radio: 3-3
