Another September Slog, Another Mariner Win: Ford Sac Fly Walks Off 7-6 12-Inning Marathon
SEATTLE, Wash. — Two teams in MLB have a 79-68 record: the Houston Astros and the Seattle Mariners. Several teams are better, several more are worse. But in the American League West, that is the top of the mountain.
For the vast majority of the year, the Mariners have been sailing underneath the Astros. There was a moment in August when the two sides were knotted, but a slump from Seattle (and a slightly less bad slump from Houston) put the M’s behind for another month.
The journey didn’t get any less arduous on Thursday, as the team battled for 12 innings against the Los Angeles Angels, the second straight day with multiple extra innings and many chances often painfully left untaken. Josh Naylor played through visible discomfort while the Mariners used every single man on their bench and every available reliever except one. But in the end, Seattle got it done, with Harry Ford doing the final honors.
“I didn’t know what to say last night,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson remarked after the game. “I really don’t know what to say tonight.”
Mariners Exploit Error for Second-Inning Rally
Although the M’s had left two men on in a frustrating first, the team pounced on a Los Angeles error to put up a big second inning rally. With one out, Angels starter José Soriano hit Luke Raley with a pitch to put a man on, but Leo Rivas chopped a ball to first that should have at least been a force out at second. Angels first baseman Logan Davidson, however, tossed the ball into Raley’s shoulder, and it ricocheted into left field, allowing Raley to advance to third.
That rather quickly came back to haunt the Halos, as J.P. Crawford lined one into the left field corner for a two-run double. Soriano grew shaken, walking both Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh to load the bases for Julio Rodríguez. Seattle’s center fielder fell behind 0-2 but whacked a two-run double of his own into left field, and the M’s went out to a four-run lead early on.
Promise, Struggles from Miller
There was some career-best good from Miller in this one, but enough costly mistakes to give the Angels enough opportunity to get back in the game. During the first two innings, he was completely dominant, striking out four batters with excellent combinations of his four-seamer and splitter.
But he began to have some control issues in the third, falling into a three-ball count against Davidson with one out. Despite already having two strikes, Miller—presumably so as to avoid the walk—tossed a heater right down the middle. That ended up being the Halos’ first hit and their first run, as the ball fell into the right center field seats. It was a special moment for Davidson, who got his first career homer, but it was the beginning of the end for Seattle’s early lead.
Yoán Moncada singled to begin the fourth and Taylor Ward followed up with a double, so the Halos had the tying run up. Miller was able to limit the damage beyond that, but both baserunners scored on productive outs from Los Angeles’ offense.
Still, Miller was racking up punchouts, with eight by the end of the fourth and began the fifth with his ninth. He eventually got to a career-high 11 strikeouts by the end of his 5 ⅔ innings of work (complemented by zero walks), but not before another costly mistake knotted the score.
Game-Tying Trout Blast
He may be from a generation of ballplayers in their waning years, but Mike Trout has historically been one of the biggest Mariner-killers of them all. His career slash against Seattle is .315/.423/.642, and this increases to .333/.433/.701 at T-Mobile Park.
But in 2025, he hasn’t been his old sailor-slashing self, coming into Thursday’s game with a meager .200/.333/.333 line against the M’s this year—and that recent run continued on Thursday. Trout struck out on four pitches in his first at-bat, putting a scare into Seattle with a deep foul ball but waving at an outside Bryce Miller heater on the next pitch.
Trout had an excellent chance in the third inning to pull his Halos closer to Seattle, but it was déjà vu all over again for the Angels designated hitter as he struck out on the exact same pitch.
Miller fell behind Trout 2-0 in the fifth inning but battled back to 2-2. A high fastball came next—usually Trout’s biggest weakness—but he expertly laid off it to work a three-ball count and keep his at-bat alive. Miller and Raleigh lined up for another high fastball, but Miller missed his spot and grooved it down the middle.
The ball landed in the bullpen for a game-tying homer, Trout’s 399th career longball.
Batting Issues Dog Mariners
Aside from the second inning, the M’s struggled early on with runners in scoring position. It’s not a new issue for Seattle, who since the All-Star Break has MLB’s fourth-worst RISP batting average. Although the team went 10-28 (.357) with RISP in their two massive Atlanta victories, they have since fallen back into their usual pattern.
The first inning saw two of the first three men get singles before Josh Naylor moved them over with a groundout, but Jorge Polanco whiffed on a splitter that tumbled under the zone. A single and a walk with one out gave Seattle another opportunity, but Julio Rodríguez’ center field liner stayed up for a couple seconds too long and Naylor softly grounded out to end the inning.
Polanco’s leadoff double in the fifth was the last baserunner Seattle had until the bottom of the ninth. With one out and the game still tied, Arozarena took some close pitches on his way to a walk against Kenley Jansen. He nearly—were it not for umpire’s interference, of all things—got to second during Raleigh’s at-bat, but the pop-up from Seattle’s catcher wouldn’t have made any difference regardless. Arozarena waltzed to second during Rodríguez’ at-bat, but a weak groundout ended the inning and sent the ballgame to extras.
Common Mariners Problems Continue in Extras
Above all the failures in execution that are part and parcel of the game of baseball, there are two failures in process that time and time again come to turn a close game against Seattle.
The first of these is a complete lack of situational adjustment. All too often, Seattle’s approach at the plate is to put everything into the hardest home run swing with no real heed to count or baserunners or score. This works decently well when they’re looking to rack up homers in the early or middle innings, but when there’s a guy 90 feet away and all you need is one run, it’s more than inadvisable.
The bottom of the 10th had some excruciating examples of this. With Rodríguez on second as the ghost runner, Naylor got aboard on catcher’s interference. Polanco popped out, but the runners executed a double steal to get the winning man to third. It was all for naught, however, as Suárez and Raley struck out, each taking some mighty hacks at pitches that weren’t too favorable to the batter.
Seattle’s second common mistake is their infield positioning, and it came to bite them in the 11th. With Luke Jackson pitching in extras for the second night in a row, the Angels bunted automatic runner Mike Trout over to third. Dan Wilson called for the intentional walk to set up a double play opportunity with one out. And indeed, Taylor Ward softly grounded up the middle—but the infielders were playing somewhat in. The ball skipped into the outfield for a go-ahead Angels run.
Playing the shortstop and second baseman close when you’re looking for the double play is an unusual move. And what’s more, they were too deep to have a play at the plate and too shallow to cover ground and turn two. Essentially, they had the worst of both worlds.
Seattle went into the bottom of the 11th down a run, but a one-out J.P. Crawford single scored a ghost runner of their own and tied it right back up. Arozarena got under the ball by a hair, missing a walk-off homer by about six feet but moving Crawford up to third. Halos acting manager Ray Montgomery intentionally walked Raleigh and Rodríguez to face Josh Naylor, a move that paid off as the Mariner first baseman struck out.
For the second straight night, it went to the 12th in T-Mobile.
Bullpen Bedazzles Again
Although the Mariners opened the homestand with a sweep of the Cardinals, they had not given their bullpen much of a break. Tuesday saw the pen’s top twirlers—Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, and Eduard Bazardo—pushed to their limit. Not to be outdone, six Seattle relievers combined for 8 ⅓ innings the very next day, an instrumental effort in the final contest of the three-game set.
Once again, the ‘pen was called on for a hefty effort. With Miller’s arm about to fall off with two outs in the top of the sixth and a man on second, Bazardo was called in. Not only did he get the final out, he worked a quick seventh inning and gave the rest of the relievers a little bit of breathing room.
Matt Brash got some help from his defense in the eighth, with a one-out double play erasing two leadoff runners and keeping the 4-4 tie intact.
Perhaps the unsung hero of the past two games has been Carlos Vargas. He has been something of a utility reliever for the M’s in the past little while, though Wilson has preferred to use him in lower leverage situations. On Wednesday, he started off the bullpen’s long run of peak form, and on Thursday, Wilson went to him for the ninth. Once again, Vargas worked a clean inning.
As the game shifted over into extra innings, Andrés Muñoz was called on for the 10th. Although a sacrifice bunt moved the ghost runner to third, Muñoz got two strikeouts to keep the game tied.
Luke Jackson and José Castillo may have each yielded their respective ghost runners, but they held the Angels away from anything else. Over the past four games, the bullpen has gone 22 ⅔ innings without giving up a single earned run. In the past two games especially, they have been tasked with something approaching perfection, and they have startlingly achieved it. Seattle has been looking all year for the lockdown bullpen that characterized seasons past—and in their latest run, they may have found it.
Harry Ford Walks it Off
Jorge Polanco has been on an underappreciated hot streak recently, and he continued that work in the bottom of the 12th, getting a game-tying extra-innings double for the second consecutive night.
Unlike Polanco’s Wednesday double, however, the Mariners cashed in the victory. Eugenio Suárez was given an intentional free pass and Victor Robles—pinch-hitting for Luke Raley with southpaw Sammy Peralta on the hill—laid down a beautiful bunt single to load the bases.
Due to a creeping barrage of pinch-hitters and defensive substitutions, Seattle had lost their right to a designated hitter, so José Castillo was due up to bat. Dan Wilson went to the last guy on the bench, the recently called-up Harry Ford.
“Honestly, I was getting ready to go pinch-run, I didn’t think I was going to get to hit,” Harry Ford said amidst the postgame celebration. “They told me I was going to get to hit, I was like ‘let’s do it!’”
Peralta’s first pitch was right down the middle. Ford let it travel for a little bit before putting a solid swing on it and sending a fly ball into medium-depth right field. Polanco tagged and went as soon as the ball hit Matthew Lugo’s glove: the Mariners were putting all their chips on this one.
Lugo’s throw came sailing in on a dime, but Polanco swiped his hand over the dish a second before it reached the plate. Seattle took the game by a score of 7-6, their sixth straight victory. It was Ford’s first big league RBI.
Perhaps Ford’s greatest admirer was Emerson Hancock. The starter-turned-reliever was warming in the bullpen just in case it went to the 13th, but Hancock—fresh off two innings the previous night—was visibly exhausted. What a relief that run must have been.
Harry Ford, welcome to the Show.
On Deck
It is a no-holds-barred chase for the playoffs in these last 15 games. Seattle and Houston are knotted with a series of three in Houston rapidly approaching, and that is a set that very well could be winner-take-all. Two games behind the twin leaders are the Texas Rangers, who have won four in a row despite a host of injuries.
September is that kind of month in baseball. It is not the dog days of August, it is beyond those. They are more tired, more banged up. But everything has the utmost importance for these squads that are fighting for their life.
There are limits, though, and the Mariners bullpen may very well be at theirs. Seattle will be looking for a big day for the bats or a stellar showing from Luis Castillo on Friday—preferably both.
