Cal Raleigh Makes History - Again - as Mariners Halt Pirates’ Win Streak With 6-0 Victory
SEATTLE, Wash. - Led by Cal Raleigh’s record-setting power, the Seattle Mariners came back from yesterday’s tough loss with a booming victory on the Fourth of July, bashing four home runs and not letting a single Pirate cross the plate on their way to a 6-0 victory.
Today was the first of a three-game set against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who came into this came having swept the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals over the previous six games to build a long winning streak. But their offense – which had scored over seven runs a game during the winning streak – was completely held in check by Mariners starter Brian Woo, the relief staff, and some good plays by Randy Arozarena in left.
“I talked prior to the game about bouncing back, and boy did they ever bounce back today,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said after the game.
Arozarena Saves Two, Raleigh Scores Two in First Inning
Woo started the game well – striking out Spencer Horwitz and Andrew McCutchen – but got into some early trouble with two outs. Brian Reynolds foul tipped a 3-2 sinker at the knees, but Raleigh didn’t hold on, so it was just a foul ball, and Reynolds walked on the next pitch. Then Nick Gonzales slapped a line drive down the right field line and into the corner. Reynolds turned hard around second, but Dylan Moore quickly gathered the ball and fired to the infield to keep him at third. With runners on second and third and two outs, Oneil Cruz popped up to shallow left field, right in the no-man’s-land between left and third. Both Arozarena and Williamson chased after, but it was Arozarena who was closer – and the Mariners left fielder somersaulted over himself and caught the ball, saving two runs.
And it was two that the Mariners would get in the bottom half. Julio Rodriguez hit a one-out grounder up the middle right to Gonzales, who sent an easy throw to first, but Horwitz somewhat goofily didn’t reach his glove out far enough to get a catch on the ball, instead bouncing it down the first base line. That brought Raleigh, who got ahead 3-1 in the count.
Bailey Falter tried to throw the All-Star catcher a fastball on the corner, but it instead got way too much plate coverage. Raleigh swung and a mighty boom shook the stadium as the bat struck the ball with a force few ball players could ever muster. Every single person in the ballpark – surely even those in line for concessions who could only hear the crack of the bat – knew that Raleigh had his 34th home run, as the ball soared into the upper deck in left field. “M.V.P.” was the chorus in T-Mobile Park as the Mariners were up two to nothing.
M’s Work Out of Jams, Randy and Cal Add Solo Shots
Falter calmed down after Raleigh’s first blast, sending the next two down in order. Woo followed suit in the top of the second, striking out two, and then Falter easily worked through his half inning. Woo breezed through the third – with the help of a long running catch by Arozarena – and the Pirates had a good play of their own in the bottom half, a running spin move by Kiner-Falefa at short to get Crawford. Woo had 49 pitches through three while Falter had 41.
In the top of the fourth, the Pirates put together some one-out traffic for Woo to navigate. First, Gonzales slapped a single up the middle past Young’s outstretched glove and then Cruz worked a walk. Ke’Bryan Hayes grounded a ball to second for what looked like a double play opportunity, but Young’s throw pulled Crawford off the bag and Cruz beat out the throw to first, leaving the bases loaded with one out.
Woo pulled ahead of former Mariner Adam Frazier 0-2 and quickly struck him out on a slider low and away. Bart was a tougher at-bat, working a 3-2 count with some good close takes, but Woo got him to softly ground to third to end the threat.
Raleigh struck out to begin the bottom half, but Arozarena delivered for the M’s. Falter hung a 1-1 curveball on a platter but well off the plate away. The Mariner left fielder’s eyes lit up as he took a swing anyway and cracked a fly ball down the right field line. The ball flew high in the air and lofted over the wall and a few rows deep into the stands to increase Seattle’s lead to 3-0.
The fourth ended soon after and the fifth was as quick as could be for both pitchers. Gonzales got an infield single with one out in the sixth, but Cruz flew out to center on the attempted hit-and-run and Gonzales seemingly did not realize it was a fly ball until Rodriguez had the ball in his glove. Although Rodriguez’ throw to first was a little offline, Donovan Solano got back to the bag and tagged it in time for the out.
After two quick outs in the bottom of the sixth, Raleigh came up for the third time. After the first pitch was a ball outside, Falter’s second delivery was a fastball in the same lower-inside part of the plate as Raleigh’s earlier bomb.
And just like the first time, Raleigh struck the ball well. Not as hard as the first, but the hit carried well to left center field. Frazier drifted back slowly to the warning track and then the wall. He timed a jump, trying to reach over and bring it back – but the ball fell a few feet beyond his glove. Raleigh had his second homer of the game and his 35th on the season to push the advantage to four runs.
Pittsburgh manager Don Kelly subsequently pulled Falter and put in right-hander Braxton Ashcraft in relief. Although Arozarena hit a single soon after, he was thrown out trying to steal second as Gonzales applied a quick tag to his back foot, and the inning swiftly ended.
Eduard Bazardo came out to pitch the top of the seventh for the Mariners with Woo’s day finished after 93 pitches. Hayes led off with a walk, moved to second on a wild pitch, and then stole third, but Frazier struck out for the third time and Bart for the second to put two away. Then Isiah Kiner-Falefa worked a walk and stole second on the first pitch to Horwitz to set up second and third with two outs, but Bazardo struck out Horwitz to get out of the jam.
Solano shot a single into right to lead off the bottom of the inning. Then Garver struck out, sending Dylan Moore to the plate with one man on and one man out.
Dylan Moore Goes Yard
To say Moore has been struggling is an understatement. To say he had been cold is inaccurate. To say that he has been something approaching zero degrees Kelvin is a little closer to the mark. Going into the game, he had struck out in 22 of his previous 36 at-bats and had just a single hit – a single – during that span (that’s a batting average of just .028!).
Moore continued that stretch with his first at-bat in the second inning, completely whiffing on a fastball at the top of the zone, taking another in the same spot, and getting yet another in the exact same spot and swinging and missing again.
Then came his second at-bat in the fifth inning. The first pitch was a fastball middle-in. Swing and a miss. The second was a fastball straight down the pipe. Swing and a miss. And the third was a fastball just up out of the zone. Swing and a miss.
The results looked to be heading the same direction in the seventh inning. Ashcraft first threw a fastball down the middle to start off. This time, Moore took the pitch. Then came two balls out of the strike zone, and Dylan Moore kept the bat on his shoulders both times.
But on the ensuing pitch, Ashcraft hung a slider right down the middle of the plate. Moore swung. Now, at this moment there was no sane fan in the grandstands who had a shred of confidence in Moore’s batting ability, as he has been going through the mother of all slumps.
But baseball is not a sane game. Whether it was an adjustment he had made in the intervening time, or that he was sitting on the pitch – or that he was sitting on the fastball but his timing was off, and therefore perfect for the slider – Moore connected. Hard. It flew 105 miles an hour off the bat, soaring quickly over Kiner-Falefa and then over Frazier behind him, landing over the wall in the bullpen.
Moore’s jubilant jog around the bases was almost a sprint. He put up the peace sign to the bullpen as he crossed second, but one wonders whether this one also carried the gesture’s older sense: victory.
Only time will tell whether Moore has actually beaten his slump, but his two-run homer in the seventh inning is something that he sorely needed. The Mariners were now up six runs to none, and the score stayed that way, as Trent Thornton pitched two quick innings of relief, striking out Joey Bart to end the game.
Ace-Level Performance from Woo
Woo had a phenomenal game for the Mariners today, going six innings, giving up no runs, striking out eight batters, and walking two. After today’s performance, he improved his record to 8-4 with 107.1 innings pitched, 104 strikeouts, 19 walks, a 2.77 ERA, a 3.48 FIP, 9.2 SO/9, and a 5.47 SO/BB ratio.
The Mariner pitcher’s whole repertoire was in order. His fastball sat at around 95 to 96 miles an hour with good run while he painted the corners beautifully with both his fastball and his off-speed stuff. Leading off the game, he found the lower outside corner with a 2-2 backdoor slider that Horwitz swung over top of. His next batter was McCutchen, who he got fishing with a 1-2 sweeper low and away.
There were a few times during the game where his sliders and sweepers out of the zone weren’t fooling the opposing batter, but no matter: Woo simply changed strategy. In the second inning, Frazier took a fastball that he thought was going to stay inside, but it ran back over the edge of the plate and home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso wrung him up. Then he worked through Joey Bart like a hot knife through butter, fanning him on a beautifully placed outside corner fastball.
Woo’s strikeout in the top of the fourth to get the big second out of that inning was perhaps his most important single effort. Although he started Frazier off with a fastball down the pipe, he then got him to chase another fastball high and away and then struck him out swinging on a backdoor low and away slider.
“For him to buckle down there and keep the game 2-0 was huge,” Wilson said. “Just really kept them in check and threw the ball well.”
Living on the Long Ball
The Mariners are a home run relilant team. When they don’t leave the yard or don’t have runners on base when they do – as happened a couple times last series – it becomes very difficult for them to win. But when they hit those bombs, they can rack up runs in bunches.
It’s obvious which one happened today. Raleigh continued his torrid home run pace with two dingers, tying Ken Griffey Jr'.’s team record before the all-star break, while Randy Arozarena hit one and Dylan Moore hit one of the least expected home runs in recent memory. All of Seattle’s runs came on the big fly, as both Raleigh’s first and Moore’s came with a man on first base.
The first homer that Raleigh hit was an absolute nuke. It flew 115 miles an hour off the bat and, according to Statcast, would have flown 433 feet in total were it not for the grandstand in the way.
“He’s a good arm, I just tried to get on a heater in the middle of the plate and was able to take advantage,” Raleigh said rather humbly.
The Mariner catcher got in a favorable count during each of his home run at-bats, which is something that he credits with giving him the opportunity to strike.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are when you’re in two strikes all the time, behind in the count and always trying to battle and at the mercy of the pitcher,” Raleigh said. “Today was a 1-0 and a 3-1. Good example right there.”
Arozarena’s bomb is a continuation of his recent hot streak, where he has hit a total of five homers in the past five games. The first two of those longballs were shots out to right center, and once more, he went with an outside pitch the other way. The ball flew quite high in the air but went out to a short part of the park down the right field line.
Seattle will likely have to continue their homer-hitting ways to score runs over the rest of this series, as we have seen in recent games.
On Deck
With the victory today, the Mariners are now 46-42, still in the third wild card spot and still in second in the AL West. The Pirates, meanwhile, fell to 38-51 and are still dead last in the NL Central despite their recent win streak.
The Mariners have two more weekend games coming up against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Tomorrow, Luis Castillo will take the mound for the Mariners in game two and George Kirby will pitch in the final match on Sunday, facing Pirates ace Paul Skenes.
