Ben Williamson Aces Hot Corner, Steals Athletics’ RBIs as Mariners Triumph 3-1
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Max Schuemann swung under the high heat, and for the 24th time this season, Andrés Muñoz recorded the last out of a Seattle Mariners victory.
But it was all due to third baseman Ben Williamson. While the M’s rookie certainly looks like a newcomer in the batter’s box, you’d think he had been snaring balls with ease for years the way he handles the hot corner. Not only did Williamson effortlessly make the routine plays, he snared two high-leverage would-be base hits to turn what otherwise would have been a 5-3 loss into a 3-1 triumph over the Athletics in Sacramento.
Monday’s game also saw Josh Naylor continue his running start in a Mariners uniform with a go-ahead homer in the second inning and another run scored soon after, setting the stage for a bounce back victory.
Josh Naylor Crushes First M’s Homer, Mariners Jump Out to Early Lead
Although JP Sears worked an easy first inning, his second frame was not a cakewalk. Sears hung a first-pitch slider to Josh Naylor and the Mariners’ new first baseman did not miss it. The bat produced a loud boom as Naylor struck the ball well over the bullpen in right center field to make it 1-0 Seattle. The new Mariner rather amusingly trotted the bases with an almost annoyed look on his face and seemed to almost be playing hot potato with the Mariner trident in the dugout.
Despite loading the bases over the next four batters, Seattle’s struggles with runners in scoring position continued as Williamson grounded into a double play.
Naylor led off the fourth with another hit, this time a single. He quickly ended up on third due to an error by Nick Kurtz on a steal. Two batters later, Mitch Garver drove a fly ball to the warning track in center to give Naylor his second run of the game on a sacrifice fly.
Williamson led off the fifth inning with a double down the left field line. Although Julio Rodriguez struck out, Cal Raleigh put together a strong at-bat and cracked a 3-2 slider into left field for a run-scoring single.
Athletics manager Mark Kotsay pulled Sears after this and brought in reliever Justin Sterner. Raleigh was quickly caught trying to swipe second, however, and this halted with the team’s rally. Randy Arozarena singled and stole two bases but Naylor flew out to end the inning. Still, the Mariners were up 3-0 after five frames.
La Piedra’s Key Quality Start
Seattle starting pitcher Luis Castillo had a really strong outing on Monday. He went seven full innings and gave up just one run. Although he had some late struggles, the final line was something that any big-league manager would readily accept. When all was said and done, Castillo left the game having thrown seven innings of one run ball on just 89 pitches.
In ages past, he would have been well on his way to a complete game. But it was still a marquee performance for a marquee pitcher. After Monday’s game, Castillo now has an 8-6 record with a 3.19 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. In Castillo’s last six starts, stretching back to June 29, he has a 1.96 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP.
Castillo’s pace over the first four frames was unreal. Although the leadoff man knocked a single to open the bottom of the first, Raleigh threw him out trying to steal second – and then Castillo got rolling.
The main pitch of his arsenal on Monday was the four-seamer, which he used to pound the strike zone, induce weak contact, and blast through the lineup at breakneck speed. But he also peppered in the sinker and slider to great effect throughout the first four innings. By the end of four frames, he had given up just two hits while striking out three and walking none, all in just 41 pitches.
The first big challenge came in the fifth. Castillo went up 0-2 to Carlos Cortes after breezing through the first two, but thrice missed up and away and his next pitch was grooved down the middle. Cortes cracked it to left center a couple inches past the glove of a running Rodriguez and ended up at third with a triple. But Max Schuemann weakly grounded out to third and Castillo left the fifth with the shutout intact, having only thrown 54 pitches.
Castillo continued to struggle with control into the sixth, hitting Luis Urías with an errant 2-2 sinker. After getting the next guy out, he once again got in a three-ball count to Kurtz and the hot-hitting Athletics first baseman drilled the 3-2 fastball into right to set up first and third with one away.
All About The Benjamin
Williamson has quickly become one of the better defensive players on the team, and tonight, he showed why. There were several stellar plays that he made – he had already nabbed a Brent Rooker line drive in the bottom of the fourth inning with a quick-thinking dive – but two plays he made in key high-leverage situations prevented an Athletics comeback.
In the sixth, it was Rooker who was once again on the business end of Williamson’s glove. The Athletics’ designated hitter saw a first pitch sinker in off the plate and drilled a hard grounder down the left field line.
Williamson somehow grabbed the ball on a dive that seemingly began before the ball left the bat. With almost no time to spare, he lifted his arm and – with his chest pointed at the dirt – skipped the ball to Jorge Polanco at second for the out. What could have been a two-run double was instead an RBI fielder’s choice.
Castillo then struck out Shea Langeliers to end the inning. Although he fell back into a bad habit of trying to sneak middle-middle fastballs in for strikes in the seventh, the Mariner starter got through the inning without any damage and finished the game with a very strong seven innings allowing just one earned run.
Seattle’s third baseman again came up with a massive play in the bottom of the eighth. Although Justin Speier got through two, he had left a man on with Rooker at the plate and so Mariners manager Dan Wilson brought in Matt Brash. But the pitching change didn’t calm things down for Seattle, as Brash’s control was nonexistent and the reliever gave up a single and a walk to load the bases.
Tyler Soderstrom got good wood on the first pitch on the ensuing at-bat and sent a hard grounder between Williamson and the third base bag. Williamson once again got an excellent jump and stretched out to grab the ball on the dive before quickly getting up and sprinting to the third base bag. His foot touched the base a split second before Colby Thomas’ hand.
What would have been a game-tying knock was instead out number three in the eighth. Muñoz worked a quick ninth inning to seal the deal for Seattle and the Ben Williamson game was complete.
Third Base Question
A game like Monday’s offers a good reason why Williamson should be on the field. He went 2-3 with a double at the plate, but defense of the caliber he showed at third is hard to replace.
Still, the offense is an issue for a team that’s looking to contend. Williamson has a respectable .256 batting average, but it’s mostly singles and he doesn’t walk all that much, so his OPS is just .608. And he’s probably getting pretty lucky on some of these hits if his .330 BABIP is anything to go by.
There’s a lot of blue on his Baseball Savant page when it comes to hitting, from his 18th percentile bat speed to his 8th percentile barrel rate and his 1st percentile launch angle sweet spot percentage. And he wasn’t much of a slugger in the minors either, with just a .650 OPS in 14 games for the Rainiers this season.
But defense-first players can be extremely valuable, as Monday’s game showed. If Williamson improves to something like a league-average bat, he would probably make a few All-Star Games and be a supremely viable option for the M’s at third base.
However, he’s quite below league average at the plate. That would also be acceptable for the Mariners, but only if they had someone like Juan Soto in right and someone like Ketel Marte at second, bats who could more than make up for the lack of production from third.
I do still think that ultimately, when considering the rest of the 2025 season, a third base rental such as Eugenio Suarez is still the better option for the Mariners, even if you won’t see the type of phenomenal plays every day like you see with Williamson. But in the long-term, if Williamson improves his bat enough, he could very well be this infield’s defensive rock for a long time.
Mariners Bats Still Sleepy
Over the last nine games, going back to July 20, the Mariners have scored just 2.6 runs per game and slashed .207/.269/.367. The big issue has been hitting with runners in scoring position, and the team once again struggled at that on Monday, going 1-6 with RISP. This is on the heels of an Angels series where Seattle went 2-30 with RISP and a Brewers series where they went 2-13. Since July 20, the M’s have gone 6-52 with RISP, a paltry .115 batting average as a team.
Now, during this same stretch, they’re still batting .227 when there aren’t any runners in scoring position, but that’s a pretty bad place to be offensively – can’t hit normally and really, really can’t hit when there’s a good opportunity to cash in for runs.
That gets even worse factoring out the final game of the final game of the Houston series, which brings the RISP average to .093, the general average to .197, and the non-RISP average to .219. There’s no mincing words there: those are some really bad performances at the plate.
While Seattle got the win today, the M’s bats are long past due for some good, consistent production. Whether they will start hitting again soon is anybody’s guess.
On Deck
Around the league, the results all fell the Mariners’ way. The Red Sox and Yankees both lost, the Astros lost their fifth straight, and the Texas Rangers lost for the first time since July 20.
Seattle, now at 57-50 after Monday’s win, is now just three games back of the Astros for the AL West lead. The Wild Card chase is heated: New York sits a half game ahead of Seattle while the Red Sox sit a half game behind and the Rangers a half game back of the Red Sox.
The Mariners continue their series against the Athletics with games on Tuesday and Wednesday before returning to Seattle to face the Rangers and begin a long homestand.
