For those unfamiliar with the tradition, the combination of Buzzfeed listicle, treasure hunt, airing of the grievances, and prix fixe tasting menu that my people call Passover—occurring this week—includes a segment in which the youngest child present asks a series of questions designed to explain why this night is different from all other nights. Taking my cue from that, here are four things about tonight’s Mariners game that make tonight different from all other Mariner games.
Cal Raleigh hit his first home run
I know, I know: Cal
Raleigh hits a lot of home runs. But the 11th game is the latest into his season it’s ever taken the Beef Boy to hit a Beef Boy Bomb. Maybe we give him partial credit for the home run Jo Adell robbed him of on Saturday, but still, it’s been hard not to feel a little pent up after last season’s record chase. To Cal’s credit, he made up for lost time with a 418-foot no doubter after working a 12-pitch at-bat against Jacob deGrom.
Two elite Hatters faced off
It took until tonight for any combination of Stetson University’s three recent outstanding pitchers—Jacob deGrom, Logan Gilbert, and Corey Kluber—to face each other. And both deGrom and Gilbert gave their alma mater some things to root for in the matter of the Hatters.
Gilbert was still a little more fuzzy than sharp with his stuff tonight, and the start and finish to his night were less than impressive. In the first inning, he located a slider on the bottom rail, but without much bite to it, and Wyatt Langford was able to knock a double. Corey Seager then drove him in on a middle-middle cutter, which, look, I’m sorry, Logan, but you just cannot leave a middle-middle pitch to Corey Seager.
Gilbert got it together in the middle of the game, starting with a gorgeous strikeout of Jake Burger on a splitter for which Burger’s swing wasn’t even in the same zip code. The next inning included back-to-back punchouts to get to 900 on his career; Logan becomes just the sixth Mariner in history to manage the feat.
But the wheels came back off in the sixth. He got lucky when a slider he served up in the lefty loop zone to Brandon Nimmo was caught at the wall, but less lucky on the back-to-back solid hits by Seager and Burger that resulted in the Rangers’ second run.
On the whole, Gilbert’s line doesn’t look all that bad, with six innings of five strikeouts, no walks, and just two runs. But I think that oversells how well he actually pitched, especially considering the quality of competition. The nine hard-hit balls and single whiff on his slider tell the more complete story.
For his part, deGrom was in trouble early, with the Mariners working long at-bats, even when they weren’t getting on base. But they let him settle in and only reached base three times in deGrom’s five innings of work: Cal’s home run plus a walk and an error.
The Mariners inspired us to remember the suffering of our ancestors
We’ve already covered Corey Seager’s two hits, RBI, and run scored. To top that off, he’s such a fearsome hitter that when he came up with a runner on third and first base open in the ninth, Dan Wilson intentionally walked him without a second thought.
I’m going a little out of order here, but another play that stood out was Brendan Donovan making a nice dive to grab a ball at the hot corner, but he eleven-hopped the throw, allowing the concrete-shoed Josh Jung to collect an infield hit.
My point with this section is that this was a game that really made me miss Kyle Seager.
Texas’s bullpen outpitched Seattle’s
Even though (1) the Rangers’ bullpen has been its biggest weakness this decade, while the Mariners’ is feared and (2) Texas’s relievers had to cover four innings to the Mariners’ two, the Rangers still came out ahead.
For Seattle, Jose A. Ferrer had his best outing with the team so far, striking out two and picking up a weak ground out. That effort gets him tonight’s Sun Hat Award (which should embarrass the literal Hatter). But Cooper Criswell was all over the place, still favoring his terrible sinker, leading to a jam that he got out of thanks only to a 5-4-3 double play that featured a nice turn by Cole Young.
The Rangers meanwhile kept the Mariners quiet. The only eventful part of their performances was the triple-switch sequence, in which the Mariners brought Víctor Robles in to pinch hit for the lefty Dominic Canzone, the Rangers countered by bringing in righty Cole Winn, and the Mariners counter-countered by subbing the lefty J.P. Crawford for Robles before Robles even saw a pitch. The gambit almost worked for Seattle, as J.P. hit a 400-foot flyout, but still, when the most eventful part was just the shuffling of names on the lineup card, you know the offense was held in check. Jakob Junis finished things off with a four-pitch save—another thing you’ll almost never see on any other night.
