Mariners Bust Out Brooms, Enter All-Star Break With 8-4 Win Over Tigers
DETROIT, Mich. – Could you imagine this three days ago? The Seattle Mariners completed the sweep of the AL-leading Detroit Tigers on Sunday, riding another big ninth inning to an 8-4 victory at Comerica Park.
The top of the Mariners’ order got it done big-time, with J.P. Crawford going 2-4 to extend his hitting streak, Julio Rodriguez mashing two extra-base hits, Cal Raleigh walking thrice, and Randy Arozarena also going yard – again.
Logan Gilbert dealt a strong 5 1/3 innings, striking out nine batters and walking just two while giving up two earned runs. Tigers starter Jack Flaherty, in a change from the previous two Tigers starters, delivered for the home team, giving up two runs over five innings of work. But the M’s chased Flaherty and got to a bullpen they had been crushing the previous two games.
That trend continued in the series finale as Seattle busted out the brooms before the All-Star break and improved six games above .500.
M’s Suffer Early Struggles
Despite the end result, Sunday’s game began with a rough first inning on both sides of the ball for Seattle.
The Mariners had an excellent opportunity in the top of the first. Crawford continued his hot streak by jumping on a misplaced slider for a leadoff single and then Flaherty walked Rodriguez and Raleigh to load the bases with nobody out.
But then Flaherty got Randy Arozarena to fish at some curveballs well outside of the zone for the first out. Luke Raley hit a soft broken bat liner to first and Torkelson caught it, noticing Rodriguez was dangerously far from the bag at second and nabbing him with a quick throw to end the half inning.
Raley made a one-out error on a routine infield grounder in the bottom half, and this began a rally that saw the Tigers plate the first runs of the game. After Riley Greene flew out to left, Torkelson worked an excellent plate appearance, taking an incredibly close fastball a hair off the lower outside corner on a 2-2 count and then walking on the next pitch. Gilbert got to a 1-2 count on Dillon Dingler but left a slider out over the plate – and Dingler mashed it down the left field line for a two-run double.
Detroit led 2-0 after one full frame. Flaherty was dealing in the second, getting two strikeouts, while Gilbert responded with three of his own in the bottom half. Flaherty followed up with two more strikeouts in the top of the third before Rodriguez came to bat.
Randy and Julio Still On Fire, Part I
Rodriguez kind of hit two home runs in his second plate appearance. The first pitch was a slider in the middle of the plate and Rodriguez turned on it, sending a high fly down the line about 20 seats back – but about 10 feet foul.
No matter. He got a fastball on the outer half of the plate a few pitches later and went with it opposite field to hit a line drive. It left his bat at 107 miles an hour, looking initially like it would fall in the middle of the outfield. But it just kept rising and rising and ended up in the first row of seats beyond the right field wall. It was a hit that showcased his potential on a swing that doesn’t often result in home runs.
And Rodriguez excelled on the other side of the ball. With Gleyber Torres on first and nobody out in the third inning, Greene cracked a single into center. Torres rounded second and charged for the third base bag. Rodriguez launched a bullet to third base and threw him out with feet to spare for a key first out.
The putout ended up keeping a runner from scoring, as two batters later, Dillon Dingler cracked a single up the middle. Were Torres still on, he would have easily scored – but Gilbert was able to strike out the next man up in McKinstry and keep the Tigers off the board in the third.
The next pitch was Flaherty’s knuckle curve to Arozarena in the top of the fourth. Flaherty had fooled Arozarena in his first appearance on some knuckle curves that scraped the dirt. But this time, he left it out over the plate.
Arozarena’s still seeing beach balls up there, and he teed off. The ball flew 103 miles an hour off the bat and soared high into the air, a no-doubt bomb to tie the game at two apiece.
Gilbert’s Splitter Gets Tigers’ Fishing
Other than the two-run first, Mariner starter Logan Gilbert was dealing. He ended up racking up nine strikeouts on the day as he got good locations on all three of his pitches while mixing them up effectively.
Five of those strikeouts came via the splitter. Gilbert has talked about how even he’s kind of guessing when he throws the splitter. It has a dancing, knuckle-y action to it, and he uses it kind of like a knuckleballer would – with the obvious caveat that Gilbert uses it as an out pitch rather than a workhorse pitch. The splitter is not on every outing, but it was on Sunday.
The first time Gilbert got a man out on the split-finger was in the second inning. He had thrown a couple fastballs up in the zone along with a slider low and was at a 1-2 count. Then his splitter came in down the pipe, right around where he had tossed his fastballs. But the dancing action fooled Meadows, who swung right through it.
Two batters later was Colt Keith. Gilbert pounded the out-of-zone space low and inside first with a slider and then with a splitter to get ahead in the count. He threw another splitter low and away and Keith swung well over the top of it for the K.
The third inning saw another splitter strikeout, this time on Zach McKinstry to get out of a two-runner jam. He mixed sliders and splitters largely lower in the zone, and his strike three pitch was a splitter that dipped to the bottom of the strike zone.
Javy Baez was the next Tiger to fall victim to Gilbert’s splitter. The first pitch was a fastball, the second a splitter away. Gilbert came back with another fastball in the zone before delivering a splitter right at the knees. Baez swung right over it.
And in the fifth, the splitter got one more. Gilbert fell behind Greene 3-0, but instead of conceding the walk, he attacked the powerful Tiger left fielder with a slider and a fastball in the zone to make it a 3-2 count. He then tossed Greene a slider well off the plate away – but Greene fished for it and came up empty.
Gilbert was also putting people away with his main out-pitch, his slider. With four strikeouts – Keith, Vierling, Torkelson, and Vierling again – on that pitch, it was another threat the Tigers had to deal with. When Gilbert has both his out pitches firing, it’s a sight to see, and a big reason why he’s one of the best arms on the Mariners’ staff.
Credit to the Tigers, though: they made Gilbert work, running up his pitch count early with their two-run rally and staying in counts even when down. The Mariners starter came into the sixth with 86 pitches under his belt and gave up a one-out walk to McKinstry that ended his day.
Seventh Sees Teams Trade Lead
The Mariners took their first lead of the game in the top of the seventh. Tyler Holton came out for his second inning of work to face Mitch Garver, getting his second start of the series at catcher. His first pitch was a called strike, but his second one was straight down the middle. Garver swung and launched a high fly ball to left field that ended up drifting all the way to the stands to give Seattle a 3-2 lead.
Then the Tigers punched back in the bottom half. After Báez walked to open the inning, Gabe Speier came in from the pen. Jahmai Jones, pinch-hitting for Colt Keith, smacked a hard grounder to third and moved Báez up to second. Then Báez stole third and Gleyber Torres hit a fly ball to deep center for the game-tying sacrifice fly. Greene came up and lofted a fly ball deep to right on a middle-in slider. The ball drifted further back in the hot July air and ended up in the seats behind the wall, and the Tigers suddenly led 4-3.
Randy and Julio Still on Fire, Part II
The Mariners scored a grand total of 35 runs in their series against the Tigers, and a big part of that offensive explosion came from Arozarena and Rodriguez being hotter than the surface of Deneb. Over the series, Arozarena went 5-14 with two homers, a double, four RBIs, and a walk, slashing .357/.400/.733. Rodriguez was even hotter, going 6-12 with three homers, two doubles, six RBIs, four walks, and two stolen bases, slashing .500/.625/1.417.
While it is a continuation of a scorching hot July for Arozarena, it is a newfound hot streak for Rodriguez, who had struggled at the plate in June and early July. But it seems his decision to forego the All-Star Game and clear his mind has helped him at the plate.
After Rodriguez and Raleigh walked to open the top of the eighth, Arozarena had a golden opportunity. Tigers reliever Will Vest pounded the inside corner of the strike zone, looking to jam the hitter, and the count got to 2-2. Then Vest threw another two-seamer on the inside corner. Arozarena turned around on the ball and skipped a rocketing grounder down the third base line. McKinstry couldn’t get to it in time and it rolled into the corner for a run-scoring double.
Although Luke Raley walked to load the bases, a flyout and a double play led to the Mariners again leaving a bases-loaded, no-out situation with nothing to show for it. That annoying tendency rearing its ugly head again was, at that moment, a key takeaway from the game. It’s hard to win when you can’t cash in during those situations.
But it ended up not mattering. After Matt Brash tossed a beautiful eighth, the ninth saw the Mariners pull away once again and complete the sweep.
Tommy Kahnle, who was unable to record a single out against the M’s yesterday, repeated his performance today. First up was Jorge Polanco, pinch-hitting for Ben Williamson. It was three straight changeups to get to a 1-2 count, but Kahnle’s fourth, also a changeup, was right down the middle.
Polanco cracked a line drive deep into the right field seats. His home run put the Mariners back in front 5-4 and brought his July slash line up to .300/.364/.700.
Not to be outdone was Cole Young. On a 3-1 count, Vest tossed Young essentially the same thing he had given Polanco: a changeup right down the pipe. And the result was the same, a blast deep to the right field seats for another dinger.
Then came a walk to J.P. Crawford, and at that point, Tigers manager AJ Hinch had seen enough. Kahnle once again failed to record an out against the M’s as Brenan Hanifee came into the game.
Hanifee wasn’t much of an upgrade, but to his credit, he had to face a blistering Rodriguez. He gave him two sinkers down in the zone. Rodriguez took the first for a strike but swung on the second, and a 109 mile an hour ground ball zoomed past McKinstry and down the left field line. Crawford scored easily and Rodriguez made it to second.
The final run of the game came on a baserunning play. Hanifee intentionally walked Raleigh and then both runners took off on a double steal. Dingler, the Tiger catcher, went for the out at third – and fired into left field. Rodriguez scored and Raleigh moved up to third.
8-4 was the way the score stayed, as Hanifee worked out of the inning and Andrés Muñoz threw a flawless ninth.
Cole Young’s Blast Was Special
I want to circle back to Cole Young’s homer. Young has shown a good amount of improvement at the plate – he’s brought his batting average and on-base to .254 and .305 after batting .188 and on-basing .212 during his first 10 games in the Show – but a lot of it has been finding holes in the infield and dumping singles into the outfield. He got his first major league homer against the Yankees on July 9, but it was a bit of a cheap porch shot.
This latest homer was not a porch job, however. When Young saw Kahnle’s meatball float to the zone, he took one of the biggest hacks of his career. The bat carried all the way around his body to his upper back before its momentum could slow. Not only did he connect to the baseball, he obliterated it. The ball left his bat at 110 miles an hour and was deep into the stands before five seconds had passed.
Getting noticeable improvements from Young is a potential ace in the hole for the Mariners going down the stretch. Seattle has needed an infield bat for a while, and Young – the Mariners’ No. 3 ranked prospect – turning into a strong piece would be huge.
The Statcast metrics of his home run also indicate potential improvement. His bat speed on the dinger was 75.0 miles an hour, faster than his relatively low average bat speed of 71.4 miles an hour. And getting more exit velocity on his hits (his average exit velocity of 87.6 miles an hour is below league average) would combine nicely with his already above-average launch angle sweet spot rate of 36.4 percent.
Still, Young will need to show more consistent improvement down the stretch. But today – and his recent production – showcases a good start.
Seattle Exorcised Demons This Series
This road sweep of the Tigers comes on the heels of the Mariners suffering their worst loss of the season to the Yankees on Thursday. The team bounced right back, outscoring the best team in the American League 35-14 over the weekend and hitting 11 total home runs, including five on Sunday.
The Mariners faced two lights-out starters and put up runs against both of them – with Tarik Skubal (2.23 ERA) giving up four runs and Casey Mize (3.15 ERA) giving up six. Jack Flaherty, the weakest of the three with a 4.65 ERA, put up the best performance against Seattle, only giving up two. The Tigers bullpen, who have a total ERA of 4.13, ended up with an atrocious 13.50 ERA over the course of the three-game set, with the M’s scoring a combined 15 runs in the ninth inning.
The team is now at 51-45, an 86-win pace over 162 games. While they are currently in the third wild card spot, one and a half games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays, 86 wins would likely not make the cut when all is said and done. Some moves at the deadline may be prudent. But for now, the Mariners are riding high on a big bounce-back series.
