Mariners Honor Ichiro with Sixth Straight Victory, Beat Rays 7-4
SEATTLE, Wash. – Saturday night could not have gone much better for Ichiro. Not only did he get his number retired before the game before a sellout crowd at T-Mobile Park, but he also saw his team take it to the Tampa Bay Rays early on and win their sixth straight game.
Julio Rodriguez whacked two home runs in the first three innings while Cal Raleigh joined the party with his league-leading 44th home run of the season, all while Logan Evans did his job on the mound and got it to the Mariners bullpen with the team in a good position to win. Cole Young, meanwhile, put together a performance that should register him with baseball people around the country when it comes to getting on base, helping ignite a 7-4 victory over a swooning Rays squad.
Squads Swap Homers in First
Just like Friday’s game, Saturday evening featured a first-inning blast from Brandon Lowe. It was, all things considered, a bit of a cheap home run, scraping the wall in left by a couple feet. But Hugo Boss or hand-me-down, a home run is a home run, so the Rays were up 1-0.
That lead lasted about as long as the presidency of William Henry Harrison. Randy Arozarena walked to begin the bottom half of the inning and got to second on a wild pitch. Julio Rodriguez sent him in with a missile over the center field wall. Nothing cheap about that one, it was vintage Armani.
The M’s were up 2-1, a lead they would keep the rest of the way.
Back to Back
The third inning was where Seattle did the big damage in front of a sell out crowd. Cole Young led off the inning with his first of four walks and was followed up with a Arozarena chopper into center field to put two men on with nobody out.
Cal Raleigh wasted no time expanding the lead. Joe Boyle foolishly tried to get a quick strike with a fastball out over the bottom half of the strike zone. The slugging catcher stayed with it and launched it out to left center field. Tristan Peters and Chandler Simpson jogged over but watched it soar over the fence.
It was number 44 on the season and the second in three at-bats for Raleigh. But it wasn’t the last bomb the M’s would hit that inning.
Boyle’s very next pitch was a slider that didn’t slide, right over the heart of the plate. Julio Rodriguez swung and hit the ball on a low line right down the left field line for a home run, clearing the fence by inches and staying fair by inches. All of a sudden, the game was 6-1 in Seattle’s favor.
Evans Does Just Fine
Mariners starter Logan Evans had exactly the kind of start you’re looking for from the fifth guy in the rotation. He went 5 ⅓ innings (and perhaps should have gone 5 ⅔ or a full six were it not for the infield positioning being messed up somewhere along the chain) and gave up three runs, although two of those were knocked in during Caleb Ferguson’s outing coming in for relief.
Still, Evans very much looked like a solid fifth starter. The Rays didn’t swing and miss a whole ton when he was on the mound, but they didn’t get much good contact, either. Evans walked three and struck out four during his start, with most of the outs coming in the field.
Evans came out of the game with one away in the sixth after giving up a single to Josh Lowe to put runners on first and third with Junior Caminero up to the plate. Despite Junior Caminero’s home run to make things close again in an instant, Evans came away with the win from Saturday’s ballgame, his sixth of the season.
Come to the Ballpark? Expect Something New
I’ve watched a heck of a lot of baseball games in my time on this earth, but I’ve never seen quite what happened in that fourth inning. It had absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of the game, but it bears talking about nonetheless.
The M’s still had a five-run lead in the top of the fourth, but it was Junior Caminero at the plate. As an aside, watching Caminero take batting practice is a treat. His swing has an incredible amount of raw power and produces a sound off the bat that is just different. Every shot goes out to Edgar’s when this guy’s taking practice shots.
The power of his swing factored into what happened. The count was 2-2 and Logan Evans pumped a sinker inside. Caminero twisted around with incredible force, but the ball ran in on his hands a little too much and cleaved his bat down the handle. The detached barrel floated all the way over the infield grass and stuck upright in the dirt.
It’s the “sticking upright in the dirt” part that I’ve never seen. The bat became like a stake on a medieval battlefield. Good thing T-Mobile Park isn’t Emerald Downs. I think everyone just stared at the thing for a bit before the Rays’ bat boy trotted out and awkwardly grabbed it.
Caminero ended up striking out and the whole episode was moot. But every so often, you’ll see something like that when you go to a ballgame.
Positioning Matters
This is something I’ve been noticing for the past couple games, and it changed the sixth inning. Cole Young has been playing too far inwards towards the grass, and it’s hindering his ability to make plays.
There was one out with one man on in the top of the sixth. Josh Lowe was on a 2-2 count at the dish and served a low-and-away changeup up the middle but well over to the right side. Cole Young got a bit of a late jump and tried to make up for it with a diving effort, but came up short, so the ball skipped into center field for a single and the other runner moved up to third.
Except that ball should have never left the infield. Sure, a better jump would have made that playable, but Cole Young was positioned about halfway between the outfield grass and the infield grass.
One of the lessons of the shift era was that the optimal location for a second baseman is about 20 feet into right field. That’s not legal anymore and baseball is better for it, but teams have adjusted to that rule by putting their second basemen in the next most optimal location, which is on the outer edge of the infield.
Had Young been on the outer edge of the infield, his range would have significantly expanded – definitely enough to get to the ball on a dive and perhaps even on the run. At least one out would have been recorded at second.
That mattered in the inning because the next man up was Junior Caminero, who got a hold of an 0-2 pitch from Caleb Ferguson and launched it over the center field wall. All of a sudden, it was a ballgame again, as the Mariners’ lead was now 6-4.
It seems the M’s learned their lesson after that. With one out and nobody on in the top of the seventh, Tristan Peters cracked a soft liner up the middle and to the right side. But this time, Young was playing near the edge of the outfield grass, and easily caught the ball.
J.P. Crawford, Foul Ball Hoarder
Another nugget of interest occurred during Saturday’s contest. Leading off the bottom of the sixth, J.P. Crawford put together a historically good popout. Crawford has always been a hitter who makes pitchers work. His two-strike approach is contact, contact, contact. This approach made Rays reliever Mason Englert have a really bad time.
Englert got the first two strikes without much issue. The third pitch was in the dirt for ball one and Crawford fouled off the following fastball on the inside corner. A changeup missed for ball two.
And the hitter, batter, catcher, and umpire got into a rhythm. Englert would throw a pitch, Crawford would foul it into the seats, home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus would unveil a new ball and give it to Rays catcher Hunter Feduccia, who would toss it back to Englert.
This happened six straight times. Englert threw ball three on the 12th pitch of the at-bat. Four more foul balls followed.
Finally, on the 17 pitch, Crawford put the ball in play. It looped off his bat into shallow center field, for a moment appearing like it could drop down for a stupendously cheesy single before finding Ha Seong-Kim’s glove at short.
But no doubt the at-bat tired Englert far beyond what he was expecting. Cole Young drew a walk (a theme on Saturday) and was singled over to third by Arozarena. Pitching to Raleigh, Englert fired one that flew out of Feduccia’s reach and allowed Young to score for the Mariners’ seventh and final run.
Bomberos Shut Door
Other than Junior Caminero’s home run to start off Caleb Ferguson’s outing, the Mariners bullpen shut the Rays down. Ferguson quickly worked two outs to end the sixth before Eduard Bazardo struck out two in 1 ⅓ innings of work, followed by Gabe Speier for the final two outs of the eighth.
Andrés Muñoz went out for the save in the ninth, though he had a healthy three-run cushion. Even though two men reached base, he kept the Rays completely off the board, striking out Ha Seong-Kim to put this one in the record book as a 7-4 Mariners win. Saturday marked Muñoz’ 27th save of the season, fifth in MLB and third in the American League.
On-Base Captain Cole Young
Every day it seems, Mariners rookie Cole Young gets better at baseball. I suppose he is one of the top rated prospects in sport for a reason. But he showed something you don’t often expect from young hitters: a tremendous ability to control the plate and force the pitcher to work.
Young walked four times on Saturday night, doing so on 25 total pitches. Other than his first appearance, where it came on four pitches, Young got to two strikes each time. No doubt his best showing was in the fourth inning, when he went down 1-2 but fouled off three two-strike pitches and forced Boyle to craft around the strike zone – which resulted in a nine-pitch walk.
And in those four plate appearances, Young didn’t swing at a single pitch out of the zone. This is something he has been good at for some time, as his chase rate is 23.4 percent compared to a league average of 28.1 percent. But so far in the season, his walk rate hasn’t been extremely notable: 8.7 percent compared to a league average of 8.4 percent.
But like many things Cole Young, it gets markedly better when you filter from the beginning of July. Between July 1 and August 8, Young drew a walk in 13.1 percent of his plate appearances, a rate equivalent to Matt Chapman. Factor in Saturday night’s results and you get a walk rate since July 1 of 16.8 percent, comparable to Max Muncy or Marcell Ozuna. The only qualified hitter with a better walk rate than both of them is Juan Soto.
In total, Young’s 2025 walk rate is now 10.7%, equivalent to Jazz Chisholm. That’s really good when you’re talking about a rookie. Oh and by the way, he’s the youngest Mariner to ever walk four or more times in one game. The previous M’s record holder? One Ken Griffey Jr.
Young’s Saturday night walks paid off for the Mariners, as the rookie second baseman scored twice.
Josh Naylor Back in Style
On Thursday, the Mariners’ new first baseman acquisition left the game with non-contact shoulder soreness. He was listed as day-to-day, but spent just one day out of action before being put right back in the lineup on Saturday night.
It was like he never left. Naylor went 2-4 with two leadoff doubles, only being kept from scoring due to the next three Mariners each falling in sequence to follow him. But the M’s had already put together enough production to win, and the hustle Naylor showed at the plate and on the basepaths was everything you want and then some.
Not only did Naylor get in scoring position twice, he also stole third, doing so in the fifth inning while Mason Montgomery was pitching. Montgomery didn’t seem to pay him any heed while he was on second (Naylor got a frankly ridiculous jump) and didn’t care much more when he was on third, but Junior Caminero did. Even with two outs, the Rays third baseman played close to the bag. Perhaps that was because a steal of home was in the back of his head with the lefty Montgomery on the bump – I know it was in the back of mine.
That stolen base was Naylor’s 11th with the Seattle Mariners, tying a Mariner record for most bags swiped by a first baseman in a season. Naylor did it in his 14th game in Seattle.
And Naylor was going at it on both sides of the ball. With one out in the top of the eighth, Brandon Lowe cracked a hard grounder down the first base line. Naylor dove to grab the ball, spun over on the ground, and fired to Gabe Speier for the out at first.
On Deck
The Seattle Mariners are just half a game back of the Houston Astros. Houston, who lost to the Yankees on Saturday afternoon in the Bronx, fell to 65-52, losing their 10th game of their last 15. Meanwhile, the Mariners moved to 65-53. The M’s have been trending in the opposite direction, as Saturday marked their sixth straight win.
In the Wild Card chase, the M’s remain two and a half ahead of the Yankees for the third spot but are now tied with the Red Sox for the first and second wild cards. Meanwhile, the Rangers fell to two and a half back of New York while the Guardians – on their own winning streak of five games – are still nipping at the Yankees’ heels, a half game back of New York.
Sunday’s game against the Rays is the last of the ten-game homestand, after which the M’s will go on the road for nine contests.
