Good, Bad, and Ugly: Mariners Get Massive Win on Walk-Off Homer vs. Rangers
There are good wins, there are great wins, and then there are the wins like the one the Seattle Mariners got Saturday night over the Texas Rangers.
J.P. Crawford hit a walk-off two-run homer to give the Mariners a 4-3 victory over the Rangers at T-Mobile Park, and they’ve now taken the first two games of this massive four-game series.
It’s imperative that we take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly from Saturday’s comeback victory.
Good: Logan Gilbert
Gilbert’s line of six innings of three-run baseball isn’t even close to indicative of how good Gilbert was Friday. He struck out seven, and outside of one inning -- and oh will we definitely talk about that inning -- the right-hander was terrific and rarely in trouble against a pretty solid Texas lineup. He generated 10 swings and misses over those six frames, and he allowed just two extra-base hits, none of which went over the fence.
Gilbert has not been as good as he was in 2024. That’s much more a compliment to that season than insult to this one, and there’s simply no denying that the injury he suffered at the end of April has played a factor. He’s still a very reliable starting pitcher, and one who is a good bet to be one of the best pitchers in the American League over these final two months.
Ugly: The Third Inning
Yikes. It looked like this was going to be the difference between the win and the loss, but, well, we’ll talk about that too.
Gilbert hit Joc Pederson to lead off the inning, and Pederson should have struck out if not for some questionable (as usual) calls from the home-plate umpire on the pitch before. With one out, Rowdy Tellez hit a ball that bounced off the bag, and Pederson was able to score because Dominic Canzone flubbed the baseball after it ricocheted to him in the outfield. Corey Seager grounded out to Josh Naylor, and Naylor stepped on first before making a terrible throw to second base on a play that should have gotten Gilbert out of the inning with a double play. Instead it hit Josh Smith, and Marcus Semien doubled home Smith.
Gilbert wasn’t completely without fault, but it should have been a one-run inning, at most. This defense simply has to play better over these final two months.
Good: The Bullpen.
Terrific, really. Gabe Speier was outstanding after taking over for Gilbert over 1 1/3 scoreless frames. Matt Brash got the next two batters out in the eighth, and Eduard Bazardo fired a scoreless ninth to keep it a 3-2 game.
This bullpen has been excellent, and while the loss of Trent Thornton for the year to an Achilles tear hurts the depth, it’s hard to remember the last time - at least in 2025 - that I’ve felt this confident in the group.
Bad: The Offense
For eight innings, this was a really poor offensive effort. And while Jack Leiter deserves credit for pitching well and a revamped Rangers’ bullpen did a nice job until the ninth, the Mariners deserve the bulk of the blame. There were so many middle-middle pitches that Seattle should have clobbered. And they did clobber them. Foul. If the foul poles were expanded by about 5 feet each way, the M’s would have scored approximately 147 runs. I’m not great at math. But to say that the Mariners missed on chances for the first eight innings sans a bases-loaded walk from Cole Young and RBI double from Josh Naylor is selling things quite short.
Wonderful: J.P. Crawford
It didn’t matter. With the Mariners trailing 3-2, the Rangers turned to Robert Garcia to close with three-straight lefties due up for Seattle. He only got to two. Canzone -- whose improvement against southpaw hurlers this year is a major development -- lashed a single off Garcia, and then Crawford unloaded for a two-run homer to give Seattle the win.
This is big for a lot of obvious reasons, and the most obvious is a walk-off homer is big no matter who hits it. It’s literally a walk-off homer. But it’s even bigger than it’s Crawford. This is a hitter that has moved down to eighth in the order, and it’s worth pointing out that he had really struggled in this game, including a strikeout on a pitch down the middle of the plate with the bases loaded in the second.
But it’s also one of the leaders of the team. It’s your shortstop. It’s a guy that when he’s at his best, sets everything up for this lineup. It’s someone that is immensely popular in the clubhouse, and if you don’t believe me, go take a look at how happy his teammates were after Crawford crossed the plate.
Again, this woulda been big if it had been anyone. The fact it was Crawford just adds to it. This is, to me, the biggest win and biggest moment of the 2025 season so far.
