Mariners Blast Blue Jays on Independence Day, Still Need Consistency
About the only similarity between the Mariners’ game on July 3 and their game on July 4 was the general state of the Toronto Blue Jays offense. Even there, the degree of futility varied from day to day; the Jays had a generally mediocre offensive day on Friday and a horrific one on Saturday. The latter performance was largely due to the Mariner starter Logan Gilbert’s excellence.
Other than that, the games could not have been any more different. In one, the Mariners fell 2-0 as their offense failed to show up. In the other, Seattle torched the Blue Jays so badly that Myles Straw was pitching in the bottom of the eighth despite not being a pitcher. The 11-0 victory that the M’s put together was tremendously cathartic for a team that had been tied for fifth-lowest in run production during the month. The most catharsis of all was reserved for one Randy Arozarena, as despite his largely consistent career-year production, he had been the biggest standout in his team’s ugly batting performance the day prior: he lost both his team’s ABS challenges with nobody on in the first inning, neither in a conducive count for challenging.
Arozarena, as it turned out, was actually on the bad side of a 2-0 strike call in the bottom of the first with nobody on. This time, he didn’t challenge. The issues with his challenges in the first had been related to inning, yes, but challenging in the first inning isn’t bad if it’s a full count or there are men on base; but both of Arozarena’s challenges on Friday came with nobody on and without three balls. In any event, the Mariners left fielder whacked a double off the right field wall. Neither Dominic Canzone nor Cal Raleigh knocked him in, but perhaps it set a more favorable tone than the day prior, when the M’s were a few hairs away from being no-hit.
Randy Arozarena capped off a monster second inning with a grand slam.
Two men fell quickly to Jays starter Shane Bieber to begin the second, but the third out is no guarantee against any MLB offense. Cole Young lined a double into the right center gap and Victor Robles shot a liner of his own into left to log Seattle’s first run, but the real damage came a few minutes later as a single and a walk loaded the bases for the aforementioned Arozarena.