Dominic Canzone, Mariners Walk Off White Sox 4-3, Complete Sweep
SEATTLE, Wash. – It took 11 innings and all but one of the 22 guys available to play on Thursday afternoon, but the Seattle Mariners completed the sweep of the Chicago White Sox on a thrilling walk-off single by Dominic Canzone.
There were interesting managerial decisions by both Dan Wilson of the Mariners and Will Venable of the White Sox, but it was Wilson’s squad with the better bullpen in the end. Seven different relievers pitched for Seattle on Thursday while six entered from Chicago’s pen, with both sides getting six innings of work after starters checked out of the game.
Despite the win, the biggest news for Seattle might be an injury sustained by Josh Naylor, who left the game in the fourth inning after wincing on several swings during his two at-bats early in the game.
Arozarena Opens Scoring
Randy Arozarena came into the ballgame with a .273/.347/.633 slash line, 14 home runs, 23 RBIs, and 27 runs scored since June 28. He was already a strong player before his hot streak, but in the past month and change, he has been perhaps the most important bat on the Mariners.
And after a leadoff single by J.P. Crawford, Arozarena’s bat struck once more. With a 3-2 count, Smith tried to get him fishing for a curveball underneath the zone. But it didn’t drop any farther than the knees and Arozarena put a big swing on it, drilling a frozen rope down the line in left. The ball cleared the wall by a few feet and put the Mariners ahead 2-0.
Arozarena’s homer was the only scoring that Seattle put across in the first nine innings of the ballgame. With Naylor out, the team suddenly had holes in the roster that resulted in a hitting performance reminiscent of the last week of July.
Gilbert Works Five Frames
The Mariners got a decent outing from starting pitcher Logan Gilbert, who gave five frames of one-run ball, striking out six while walking three. But with the way this game turned out, five innings of work resulted in the Mariners bullpen being stretched to his absolute limit.
Gilbert relied mostly on the four-seamer and slider, but the fastballs were a little more common against lefties while the sliders concentrated against the right-handers. Although he was getting a fair bit less spin on the ball for both those pitches, he was still able to mix them up enough to fool the White Sox on their first time through the order, getting five strikeouts in the first three innings.
But there was a little bit of a control issue, as he walked two guys in the first third of the ballgame, both of which got into scoring position. But the game was still scoreless through three innings.
In the fourth, however, he faced an extended at-bat against Luis Robert Jr. With one out, Gilbert tried to jam him inside with fastballs for the strikeout, but Robert fouled them off each time. Some pitches just a bit off the plate didn’t get any bite from Robert, who worked the count full.
Gilbert tried to get a 3-2 slider on the outer edge, but it stayed out over the middle. Robert cracked a low line drive into right center field. Although Rodriguez made a valiant diving effort, it hit the grass for a double. Colson Montgomery drew a walk to put two men on, still only one out.
Despite falling behind 2-0 to Curtis Mead, Gilbert got two quick outs to finish the inning with the shutout still intact. But he was already on 77 pitches, just 47 of which had been thrown for strikes.
There was less traffic in the top of the fifth, yet more runs. Funny how that works, but that’s the power of the solo shot. Michael A. Taylor was the man who got on the board for the White Sox, skying a hanging splitter about five feet past the wall in left field.
By this point in the game, the stuff wasn’t getting the same swings and misses it had been getting earlier, but Gilbert was still able to get through the rest of the inning with no more damage. His final pitch of the game got him his sixth strikeout, a well-placed 2-2 splitter to Lenyn Sosa.
It was his 94th pitch of the game, so Dan Wilson put in Caleb Ferguson to start the sixth.
Passing the Baton
The bullpen was called on for at least four innings of work, but the White Sox immediately produced trouble. Robert whacked a one-out single into right and was replaced at first by Colson Montgomery on a fielder’s choice. Curtis Mead landed another single to put himself on as the go-ahead run. Wilson yanked Ferguson off the mound and put Carlos Vargas in to try and get Edgar Quero for the third out.
Although Vargas overcooked a 2-2 fastball for a wild pitch that moved the runners into scoring position, Quero’s bat flew underneath the next one, and the M’s got out of the sixth with their one-run lead still intact.
The lead was gone in the seventh. Leading off, Brooks Baldwin got a fastball on the lower inside part of the plate and sent a fly ball a couple inches over the right field wall. Tie game. Gabe Speier came in a couple batters later for the lefties at the top of the order.
Andrew Benintendi finished off the inning with a massive (albeit meaningless) scare, as he cracked a high fly ball to the last couple feet of the warning track in right field with a man on first. But the ball harmlessly fell to earth within the confines of the ballpark.
Matt Brash was next in line for the M’s and was the first reliever to deliver an entire inning for the home side. But he too had to work around significant traffic, as two singles and two stolen bases got runners on second and third with one away. But Brash did his job and kept the White Sox scoreless, so it was on to Andrés Muñoz for the ninth. The Mariner closer worked a perfect inning, one of just three one-two-three frames by Seattle’s staff.
Sometimes, Bunts Aren’t Best
I’m not entirely opposed to the sacrifice bunt. But it’s a situational use case, not to be used every single time you just need one run and you have the first two guys on.
Take yourself to the bottom of the eighth. Tied ball game, two runs apiece. A four-pitch walk and a single opened the inning, so you have a really good start to get the all-important go-ahead run and put yourself in position to win the ballgame.
Now, in a lot of cases, bunting makes sense here. Let’s say your current hitter isn’t very good, then it makes sense. Or the hitters coming up are great contact guys who you can trust to get the ball in play and get one of the guys home: makes sense.
When your next three hitters are Eugenio Suárez, Jorge Polanco, and Mitch Garver … then it doesn’t make sense. Here’s why:
Suárez is a high-strikeout guy. There’s a big chance that any given out will be completely useless to the guys on base. And the home run – Suárez’ big upside – does the same amount of damage whether or not the runners are in scoring position.
The second batter, Polanco in this situation, doesn’t matter all that much. Because Garver has a poor batting average, the other team can put Polanco on the free base to face him.
And that’s what ended up happening. Suárez struck out after frustratingly taking a couple good pitches to hit, the White Sox walked Polanco, and Garver struck out to end the inning.
Also, with Raleigh at third, Wilson put in Miles Mastrobuoni as a pinch-runner. This was another interesting decision, given that Raleigh was only 90 feet away and isn’t a bad runner by any means, though he isn’t a traditional speedster.
Bazardo Cedes Bizarre 10th Inning Run
The top of the 10th was one of the ghost runner innings that happened, and that’s the best summary that can be given.
Eduard Bazardo came on for the inning and was much better than he had been on Wednesday, getting two quick outs to put the Mariners on the verge of a clean inning. Here Wilson played the handedness matchup, intentionally walking Colson Montgomery to get to the right-handed Curtis Mead.
But Bazardo’s 0-1 ran inside and plunked into something near Mead’s bottom hand. The ball rolled forward and the M’s made the putout just in case, but the call on the field was a hit batsman. Wilson called for replay review, claiming it had struck the knob of the bat.
Replay review confirmed the call on the field. This was, I think, the correct call. The side angle shows the ball bouncing off Mead’s left forearm and downwards towards the dirt, rather than the slightly outwards angle the ball would have if it hit the knob of the bat.
An 0-2 pitch to Edgar Quero was inside. That wouldn’t usually matter, but Garver was unable to come up with the ball and it rolled to the backstop. This was scored a wild pitch, though passed ball is perhaps more apt. In any case, ghost runner Lenyn Sosa scored from third and the White Sox had a one-run lead going into the bottom of the 10th.
Sometimes, Bad Strategy Works
If bunting in the bottom of the eighth was questionable, doing so in the bottom of the 10th was downright bizarre. With Arozarena as the ghost runner, Mastrobuoni led off the inning. This is the big risk Wilson took with pinch-running Mastrobuoni in the eighth. Instead of giving your MVP candidate who leads the league in homers a chance at the plate – and saving Mastrobuoni to pinch-hit for Dylan Moore (who has had two hits in the span of over two months) – you have Mastrobuoni and Moore as two of three hitters in the bottom of an inning where you absolutely need a run.
And Wilson had Mastrobuoni bunt. Move the runner to third in front of one good hitter and another guy who can’t make contact. In fairness to Mastrobuoni, he – like Cole Young before him – laid it down beautifully.
Josh Rojas, in as a defensive replacement for Brooks Baldwin, airmailed the throw. And so the game was tied.
Most Times, It Doesn’t
Dylan Moore predictably struck out looking in his one at-bat. But the manager who made the game-losing decision was Will Venable, not Dan Wilson.
After a one-two-three inning from Jackson Kowar (which I totally predicted as long as you don’t check my statements from earlier today), the M’s entered the bottom of the 11th with Suárez as the winning run on second.
Polanco struck out to put one away. And for some reason – a lot of baseball people overrate the same-handed pitcher advantage, that’s the reason – the White Sox intentionally walked Mitch Garver so lefty Brandon Eisert could face Dominic Canzone.
Eisert’s 2-1 pitch was a slider out over the plate. Canzone cracked a grounder through the right side of the infield. Suárez bolted from second and ran as fast as he possibly could around third as Michael A. Taylor picked up the ball in right and fired home – and didn’t have enough juice on the throw. Suárez slid into the plate as the ball bounced into Edgar Quero’s glove. The Mariners won 4-3.
Mariners Win Despite Adversity
The big positive of Thursday’s win was that it wasn’t a game where they were on top of things from start to finish. Rather, they overcame challenges in order to win. Now, some of those might have been a little self-imposed, but they came away with the win nonetheless.
The hero in the end was Dominic Canzone, who has played a lot of 2025 as a platoon bat against right-handed pitching but has lately taken more of a complete role as the team’s starting right fielder. And in a sink-or-swim situation, Canzone has been swimming.
“The thing that strikes me the most is [Canzone’s] ability against left-handers at this point,” Wilson said. “Just being a more complete hitter than what he was before.”
Canzone’s single was the first walk-off hit of his career.
Naylor Leaves with Discomfort, Injury Status Unclear
The newly-minted Mariner was only in Thursday’s game for three innings as it seemed he had some sort of back discomfort starting from a swing in his first at-bat. He visibly winced after a fair amount of his hacks in the third inning and was pulled for Donovan Solano to start off the top of the fourth.
Wilson gave the update after the game that it was shoulder soreness and that Naylor is currently day-to-day, using the word “monitor” to describe his attitude towards the injury. Any further updates will likely have to wait.
On Deck
The Mariners needed a sweep against the White Sox, and a sweep was what they got. With the final win on Thursday, Seattle is now 63-53, 10 games above .500 for the first time in 2025.
The M’s are just one and a half games back of the Houston Astros for the AL West division lead – but that has been the team’s white whale since 2002. In the wild card race, the Mariners are currently in sole possession of the second wild card, a game back of the Red Sox (in the first wild card spot) and a game and a half ahead of the Yankees (in the third spot).
Seattle’s next opponent is the Tampa Bay Rays, who come to T-Mobile Park for an Ichiro-celebration weekend series to round out the 10-game homestand.
