Today’s game featured a compelling symmetry. Each team got two early. Each team had a string of disasters in one of the middle innings. Each team took a late lead off a player’s second home run of the day. But the real, awful symmetry is simply this: The Mariners looked evenly matched with the A’s.
The A’s early runs came on back-to-back dingers in the first inning. Zack Gelof has quietly been one of the better hitters in MLB this season, so it was really just a tip-your-cap situation when he gave
a 405-foot ride to a 96-mph heater that was up above the zone. That’s what we want Bryce Miller to do, and if someone can get to it in a 2-2 count, fine. But Miller followed that up with a first-pitch cutter to Lawrence Butler that landed so middle-middle that Miller’s currently fielding calls to throw in the Home Run Derby next year.
The 2-0 deficit didn’t last long. Not with Randy Arozarena still on this team. Jhonny Pereda led off the third with a well-struck double off a decent pitch. So he was on second base when Arozarena got a little underneath a top-rail pitch, but hit it so hard that it didn’t matter how high up it went, by the time it came down, it was on the other side of the fence. It was Randy’s 24th bomb of the year, and even though it tied the game, he’s going yard so often that he frankly looked a little bored with his trident celebration.
That 2-2 tie shouldn’t have stressed out the A’s, but in the fourth inning, the wheels came off. One of Michael Arroyo’s three walks on the day got sandwiched between a Josh Naylor single and a Weston Wilson water balloon into no man’s land to load the bases. Pereda’s sac fly was into shallow left field, but Naylor took off from third anyway. It shouldn’t have worked with Naylor’s foot speed, but the A’s moved just a little too slowly. So the M’s took a 3-2 lead. The damage should have ended there, when J.P. Crawford followed it up with a soft line drive. But the ball hit the pitcher on the tush, and died in the middle of the infield, so another run scored. Even worse for the A’s, it brought up Randy again, who hit the ball up the middle with some authority to bring home a third run of the inning.
With the Mariners tacking on another run in the fifth, Bryce Miller had a four-run cushion in his first attempt to go five full innings in a month. He very nearly didn’t, and the bottom of the fifth was almost the A’s big inning. As soon as he faced a batter for the third time, Miller walked him. That was his fourth of the day, and given Miller’s trouble the third time through, it was probably time to pull him. But Dan stuck with Miller. A perfect pickoff move and a groundout brought Miller up to 4.2 innings. After he then allowed his fifth walk of the day, it was truly time to pull him. But Dan stuck with Miller. Miller rewarded the faith by ending his day on his best pitch of the game, a nasty splitter that finished his fifth strikeout. Not his best outing with the five walks, but with five strikeouts and five innings pitched, at least there was some pleasing symmetry to his final line.
So the 6-2 lead should’ve buoyed the Mariners, but in the seventh inning, the wheels came off. Carlos Vargas had pitched a clean sixth, but came back out and quickly gave up a ground-rule double and hit a batter. Gabe Speier came in to face some lefties, and got the double-play ball he was looking for, but Brock Rodden hesitated. When he ultimately committed to first base, he was too late. With the bags now packed and no outs, Speier got Gelof into an 0-2 count but couldn’t finish him off, ultimately walking in a run. A 10-pitch at-bat to Butler ended with a groundball hit so slowly that the only play was to first and another run scored. With a righty stack up, Dan pulled Speier for Seranthony Domínguez, who also got the double-play ball he was looking for, but it ticked off his glove and thus got through the infield, giving the A’s their third and fourth runs of the inning to tie the game at 6-6. Too many walks and a comebacker bouncing off the pitcher—no wonder the score was tied.
After trading early dingers and middle-inning disasters, the Mariners could have to beat the A’s late. They certainly had the right guys coming up. Jhonny Pereda singled and got to second base on a soft groundball out from J.P. Crawford. But upon getting to second, Pereda made the turn for third and was TOOTBLANed. (In a different season, that might be the team’s most memorable unforced error.) So unlike in the third, Jhonny Pereda was not at second base when Randy came up to bat and hit a monster home run. Still, one run was enough to take the lead at 7-6, and a late-inning, go-ahead home run was too significant not to get Randy hyped. He unquestionably enjoyed this trident celebration.
This will probably be his final Sun Hat Award. I am with the consensus that Randy will not return to the Mariners when he reaches free agency at the end of the season. But I will treasure his time here. One of the most charismatic, electric players in the game, he was easily one of my favorite non-Mariners and I couldn’t believe my luck when he was brought to Seattle at the 2024 deadline. I’m sure I was not alone in that.
Alas, the symmetry had to continue. Andrés Muñoz was asked to get a five-out save and got the first two easy peasy, cleaning up a mess in the eighth. But he couldn’t get any of the three ninth-inning outs. Just like in the first inning, Zack Gelof took a heater on the top rail and smashed it to left. This one stayed in the yard, but it meant Gelof was on first when Butler got a pitch right in the middle of the plate, and tanked it for his second dinger of the day.
In the early innings, Pereda and Randy teamed up for a pair of Mariner runs, and Gelof and Butler combined for a pair of A’s runs. In the late innings, the A’s completed their symmetry. But Pereda was not on base for Randy’s second home run. He could’ve been. He should’ve been. But that’s how this season has gone.
From Sacramento, John reports that after Butler’s walk-off home run, Randy stood with his hands on his knees just staring at home plate for about 30 seconds while everyone else trudged in.
Five back with 12 to go. Let it end.
