> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # M’s Bring Out Brooms in 11-2 Thrashing of Angels, Win Ninth Straight, Take First Place - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/ms-bring-out-brooms-in-11-2-thrashing-of-angels/ - Published: 2025-09-15T06:55:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T05:58:15.000Z - Author: Callaghan Bluechel - Tags: Analysis, Mariners, Cal Raleigh, George Kirby, Jorge Polanco, Julio Rodriguez, Randy Arozarena, Josh Naylor, Dominic Canzone, J.P. Crawford [Embed from Getty Images](http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/2234911103?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) SEATTLE, Wash. — For now, the Seattle Mariners stand atop the mountain. On Sept. 14, 2025, the Astros and Rangers finally blinked, losing to the struggling Braves and Mets, and the Mariners responded with a win of their own to grab the crown—for now, at least. It is hard to imagine a day or game that could have gone better for the Seattle Mariners. Every gear was greased, every seal airtight, and every key player locked in as they swept the Los Angeles Angels with the clouds rolling in over their heads. Not only did they move into first, but they secured a fifth straight winning season for the first time in franchise history. ### Raleigh Ties Mantle with 54th Homer There are very few players for whom six games without a homer is a dry spell. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh is one of them. He came into Sunday’s game with an MLB-leading 53 big cracks during the 2025 season, the most ever in a season by a primary catcher. It was the second-most in a season for a switch-hitter, behind only Mickey Mantle. The two of them became tied in the first inning of Sunday’s game. Raleigh jumped on a first-pitch outside sinker from Angels starter Kyle Hendricks and slapped it on a line over the left center field wall, a two-run blast to put the Mariners on the board. Seattle’s backstop got himself on base twice more on Sunday, with a third inning single and a fourth inning walk, but the home run was the big news. Raleigh notched just the 31st 54-homer season in MLB history and became just the 21st separate player to accomplish that feat. Just one of those other 20 was a switch hitter: one Mickey Mantle. For Raleigh, that feat brought to mind a memory of the 2008 season’s waning days, when he and his father made the trek up to Yankee Stadium as an impromptu day off school to see a Yankees-White Sox contest in the last year before the Bronx Bombers moved to New Yankee Stadium. “We went to—I don’t know, a gift shop, there were a bunch around there—he was telling me about Mickey Mantle, teaching me, he’s like ‘you could be like him, you’re a switch hitter,’” Raleigh recalled. “I remember him talking about him like he was a god, which he was. It’s cool to think about that time.” ### Furious George Shuts Down Angels Mariners starter George Kirby was blowing doors off on Sunday afternoon with enough frequency to make you wonder whether he had found a way to mix the Monty Hall Problem and the Big Bad Wolf. The first at-bat of the game was a good indicator of what was to come. Going up against famed Mariner-killer Mike Trout, Kirby dotted the ball all along the corners of the plate and swapped between his slider and fastball, eventually getting him to chase a fastball off the plate. That was the first of 14 punchouts for the Mariner starter: two in the first, two in the second, three in the third, two in the fourth, one in the fifth, three in the sixth, and one final strikeout in the seventh. Three punchouts came on a backdoor running sinker to a right-hander, another on a similar four-seamer. Kirby got swings and misses on six two-strike heaters, while all three of his sixth-inning strikeouts caught an Angel looking. All while Kirby gave up zero free passes to the visitors. Incredibly, this wasn’t even the first time he struck out 14 and walked none against the Angels *this season*, having done so during a June 8 start in Anaheim. He is the third starter in Mariner history to record multiple games with 14 or more strikeouts during a single season (after Mark Langston and Randy Johnson) and the only one to do so without giving up a walk. Interestingly, Kirby indicated postgame that the 14th and final strikeout only occurred because of some sort of dugout miscommunication, and that manager Dan Wilson had planned to pull him between innings. “There was a miscommunication there, I wasn’t supposed to go back out,” Kirby said. “I didn’t know, I just went out there and did my thing.” Despite two runs scoring on solo shots from Christian Moore and Oswald Peraza, It was a welcome bounceback game for Kirby, who had given up 10 earned runs in his previous six innings and entered Sunday’s game with a 4.56 ERA. ### Jorge Polanco, Doubles Machine The hottest Mariner bat in the month of September is Jorge Polanco. The journeyman infielder and designated hitter entered Sunday’s game with a .366/.417/.707 slash line in the month of September, with 10 of his 15 hits being for extra bases. In particular, what Polanco has been doing has been ending up on second base with astonishing frequency: he had come into Sunday having knocked at least one double in six straight games. That streak might as well be called a “tendency” compared to Sunday afternoon. Polanco cracked a double down the right field line in the first inning, notched another two-bagger on a soft liner into left in the third, and completed the hat trick with a grounder down the left field side. None of these balls were particularly hard hit, but Polanco seemingly made use of the old Wee Willie Keeler advice and hit it where they weren’t. Polanco scored on the latter two doubles, his teammates knocking him in to pad the Mariners’ exploding advantage. He now has a 391/.434/.761 slash line in September and a .267/.328/.497 slash line—along with 28 doubles, 24 homers, 72 RBIs, and 59 runs scored—for the entirety of 2025. ### Mariners Offense Obliterates Kyle Hendricks 10 hits, nine earned runs, four doubles, two walks, and a homer. That’s what the Mariners accrued over a total of 22 batters faced. Yes, for those of you with a calculator or passable mental math skills, the Mariners hit .500 against Los Angeles’ starter on Sunday. Up and down the lineup, the guys saw the veteran Halo extremely well, with Julio Rodríguez getting two doubles, Josh Naylor knocking in three runs, and several other guys reaching base. It was a case of the M’s being both lucky *and* good, as although their .331 expected batting average against Hendricks was significantly lower than .500, it was still a really strong total. Seattle put up two in the first on Raleigh’s shot, followed three in the third on a Naylor sacrifice fly and a two-run Dominic Canzone single, but the really crooked number came in the fourth. J.P. Crawford singled and Raleigh walked, Rodríguez doubled Crawford home, and Naylor singled in both his predecessors to make it an 8-0 game with just one out. The Halos pulled Hendricks and put in reliever Connor Brogdon, who gave up a double, a single, and another double before finally getting the third out in an inning where Seattle sent 11 men to the plate and took a 11-0 lead. ### On Deck The Seattle Mariners are 82-68 after their Sunday triumph and are in the driver’s seat in the AL West. Not only did Houston lose to fall to 81-69, but the Texas Rangers also dropped their game against a struggling (to put it lightly) Mets team, and so they dropped to 79-71\. But the Mariners are nowhere close to being out of the woods. After a rest day Monday, the M’s travel to Kansas City to play three games against the Royals, while the Rangers and Astros have a trio of contests against each other between Monday and Wednesday. While the Royals are 75-75 and six games out of the third wild card spot, Seattle has to make sure they don’t let off the gas as they begin the final 12 games of the season. The real challenge ahead is what comes after Kansas City: a weekend series on the road against Houston. It’s very likely that the division crown will come down to those three games.