{"id":4381,"date":"2025-04-18T01:59:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T05:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/?p=4381"},"modified":"2025-04-18T01:59:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T05:59:42","slug":"seattle-11-cincinnati-7-10-10-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/archives\/4381","title":{"rendered":"Seattle 11, Cincinnati 7 [10] (10-9)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This one was <em>wild<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been less engaged with the M&#8217;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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suffice it to say that when I tuned in and it was already 2-0 Reds, I thought we were in for another <a href=\"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/archives\/4347\">Hancock Special<\/a>. But it turns out those were the only runs he&#8217;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 &#8220;Goodbye Glasses&#8221; Raley and a little 5th inning chaos ball with a reached-on-error run followed by a sac fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But Thornton didn&#8217;t return. He&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;t add on then and had to rely on Casey Legumina to preserve a tie, I somehow knew after Randy&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;s were 4-0 in such games for me. Long live superstition!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 10th started amazingly strong, with Miles Mastrobuoni\u00a0trying 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&#8217;s MLB, but the M&#8217;s were poised to add on, which is even more essential. Julio, who clearly absolutely loathes hitting leadoff (and has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/news\/julio-rodriguez-moved-from-mariners-leadoff-spot\">essentially said as much<\/a> after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/4510912\/2023\/05\/12\/julio-rodriguez-struggles-leadoff\/\">always struggling there<\/a>) 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he struck out on 3 pitches, which can sometimes happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Game19-Randyland.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"700\" height=\"390\" src=\"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Game19-Randyland.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4382\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Game19-Randyland.png 700w, https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Game19-Randyland-300x167.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a lot of notes for this game I could write with the M&#8217;s finally getting above .500 for the first time since 1-0! They&#8217;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&#8217;re in a playoff position as of today&#8217;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&#8217;d play if they made that playoff with today&#8217;s standings? 3 games in Toronto. Site of our last playoff series win. Site of our next regular season series, starting tomorrow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the last 7 games:<br>JP Crawford is <strong>hitting .364<\/strong> with an OBP of .481 and an OPS of .936.<br>Cal Raleigh is hitting .233 with an OBP of .303, an OPS of 1.170 and <strong>6 HR<\/strong>.<br>Randy Arozarena is hitting .318 with an <strong>OBP of .531, an OPS of 1.259<\/strong>, 5 SB, and 7 bases loaded RBI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These guys are <em>raking<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is it any wonder the Mariners are 6-1 in that span?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Mariners Stats:<\/em><br>Comeback Wins: 6<br>Wire-to-Wire Wins: 4<br>Comeback Losses: 4<br>Wire-to-Wire Losses: 5<br><br>Multi-Homer Games: 4-4<br>Single-Homer Games: 6-1<br>No-Homer Games: 0-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One-Run Games: 4-3<br>Extra-Innings Games: 1-2<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Record When Scoring >5 Runs: 3-2<br>Record When Scoring 2-5 Runs: 7-3<br>Record When Scoring &lt;2 Runs: 0-4<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Personal Stats:<\/em><br>Watched on TV: 1-5<br>Listened on Radio: 5-0<br>Mixed TV\/Radio: 3-3<br>Followed on Gameday: 1-1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This one was wild. I&#8217;ve been less engaged with the M&#8217;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&#8217;ve been keeping an eye via Gameday when possible and today (truly a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,48,10],"tags":[96,5,54],"class_list":["post-4381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2025-mariner-recaps","category-a-day-in-the-life","category-lets-go-ms","tag-2025-mariner-recaps","tag-a-day-in-the-life","tag-lets-go-ms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4383,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4381\/revisions\/4383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluepyramid.org\/storey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}