Another Mariner comeback

 

The Seattle Mariners won their third consecutive series, beating the Cincinnati Reds in a wild-and-wooly afternoon game, 11-7, in ten innings at the Great American ballpark. A total of 39 players were used in the game including eight Seattle pitchers and seven Cincinnati hurlers.

Randy Arozarena hit a game tying homer in the ninth inning and drove in two more runs in a four-run tenth inning. J.P. Crawford had the game-winning hit for the M’s earlier in the frame.

Crawford hit a slow grounder that Reds’ shortstop Elly De La Cruz had no play on. Called the `most exciting player in baseball’ by some, De La Cruz made two errors in the game and had trouble getting to a couple of other balls.

The Mariners (10-9) now continue their first long homestand of the season with series in Toronto and Boston. Seattle trails Texas (a team it swept in its most recent homestand) by two games in the American League West.

The M’s trailed 2-0 after an inning, took a 5-3 lead into the eighth, fell behind 7-5 on former Mariner Jake Fraley’s grand slam home run and tied the game in the ninth on leadoff homers by Cal Raleigh and Arozarena.

Raleigh now has six home runs in six games, tied for the American League HR lead with the Athletics’ Tyler Soderstrom with eight. In the Mariners 5-3 win over the Reds on Tuesday night, Raleigh, a switch-hitter, homered from both sides of the plate.

The Mariner catcher has now hit two homers in a game 11 times and four times he’s done it with homers from both sides of the plate. Jorge Posada (eight) and Todd Hundley (five) are the only catchers to homer from both sides of the plate in more games. For fans of obscure trivia, the last time Hundley performed that feat was May 5, 1997, the day Mariner pitcher Logan Gilbert was born.

Raleigh’s second homer on Tuesday was also the 100^th of his major league career. The M’s catcher reaches that milestone in game 482 of his major league career. The only Mariner to reach 100 in fewer games- Alex Rodriguez in his 470^th game.

The five homers that Raleigh’s hit from the left side of the plate have come with the so-called `torpedo bat,’ which became the vogue when the New York Yankees hit what seemed like a zillion home runs (eight in one game) the first weekend of the season.

The torpedo bat has an unconventional shape designed to distribute weight and improve hitting performance. It looks like a bowling pin, with a thicker barrel closer to the hitter's hands and a thinner end. So far at least, Raleigh has used a more conventional bat when hitting from the right side of the plate.

Emerson Hancock started on the mound for the M’s yesterday afternoon, a game of redemption for the 6’4 right-hander from Georgia. In his only other start this season, Hancock surrendered six runs in 2/3rds of an inning against the Athletics. Yesterday, Hancock allowed only five hits in five innings and settled down after surrendering a two-run homer to Austin Hays in the first inning.

Casey Legumina, a former Gonzaga University Bulldog, picked up his first victory as a Mariner. Legumina’s only other major league victory came as a member of the Reds on Apr. 29, 2023 against the Oakland Athletics.

Andres Munoz, 6-for-6 in save opportunities, came on in the bottom of the tenth to wrap up the victory. Munoz wasn’t credited with a save in the contest as the M’s held a four-run lead.

Only a week ago, Seattle was last in the AL West with a 4-8 record. In what will be looked back as a pivotal game in the season, the Mariners trailed the Houston Astros, 5-0, heading into the bottom of the eighth inning.

In that Apr. 9 game, Arozarena blasted a grand-slam home run to cut the lead to 5-4. Trailing 6-4 in the last of the ninth, Julio Rodriguez laced a two-run double to right driving home two runs and Arozarena drew a bases loaded walk to end it. Seattle took that series from the Astros and swept the Rangers over the weekend.

“I've seen everybody with a good attitude, going out there and trying to give their best,” Arozarena told the media after yesterday’s game. “I see a bunch of guys that are going out there and giving the best they can to win these games.”