I have no idea whether this was a good game or not. It was a game in which Bryan Woo gave up four home runs for just the second time in his career; it was a game in which Dominic Canzone and Connor Joe both had pinch-hitting game-tying RBI hits. It was a game in which Cooper Criswell struck out three; it was a game in which Cooper Criswell surrendered a go-ahead home run to a guy who’d only hit 27 home runs over 1,685 professional PAs. It was a game in which Josh Naylor stole two bases; it was a game in which Jordan
Walker was caught stealing and grounded into a double play. Truly the best of times and the worst of times.
We begin at the beginning, with Julio hitting a two-run home run in the top of the first, going all the way to the upper deck. Personally, I think this was the most majestic Julio home run since the final game in Kansas City in 2023. Any others come to mind?
That 2-0 start to the game felt pretty good knowing that Bryan Woo was taking the mound, but the good feelings were short-lived as Woo opened his outing with back-to-back home runs, his first and second dingers of the year. But those bad vibes were quickly eradicated by Mitch Garver picking up an infield hit and scoring on Will Wilson’s first big-league home run, coming in his first at-bat as a Mariner. And back and forth it went the entire game.
Was Woo bad or do we just shake it off? Let’s be real here, four home runs is a lot. And he was genuinely missing middle-middle pretty regularly—this wasn’t some Chicago wind storm or something. But on the other hand, you can’t get too worked up about an off day from a guy who’s had so much consistency that he literally holds the franchise record for most consecutive 6 inning games to open a season. All I know for sure is that, for today, pulling him after three innings was the correct move.
For the offense, I don’t know that I’d make that much of it, considering how exhausted the Cardinals pitchers looked. Starter Matthew Liberatore didn’t make it through four innings either, and the red birds ultimately had to use seven relievers today, three of whom were working for the second day in a row, and their best reliever had to toss 39 pitches.
Overall, the 33 combined hits this afternoon ties the MLB record for a nine-inning game, tying a 1932 contest between Cleveland and the Philadelphia Athletics. This was by definition an outlier.
Still, while the rational part of your brain chalks this up to an oddball out of 162, the id can’t help but be excited by seeing all those balls find grass or bleacher seats. The Mariners’ 19 hits helped raise their team wRC+ from 16th in MLB before the game to 9th afterwards.
Two of the biggest contributors helped re-spark the offense right as the game felt like it was settling down in the seventh inning with the score 9-7. The typically light-hitting Mitch Garver, who’d already supplemented his infield hit with a should-have-been home run that was robbed, ended up getting his second hit of the day by clanking one off the third baseman’s glove. Cole Young, who’s not supposed to hit lefties but had taken one deep earlier in the game and just missed another big fly (instead settling for a double off the wall in the deepest part of the park) got his third hit of the day with a laser up the middle.
The online Mariners fandom then lost their minds at a sequence in which Leo Rivas bunted and then Dan Wilson brought in his fourth sub of the game, asking Connor Joe to pinch hit for Luke Raley. The Cardinals predictably countered by bringing in a righty of their own. Aaron Goldsmith barely concealed the skepticism in his tone when he took us to break with, “The Mariners would apparently prefer Connor Joe against Riley O’Brien to Luke Raley against JoJo Romero.”
I tend to think the peanut gallery is overblowing their hatred of Dan’s pinch-hit decisions (and also putting way too much blame on the manager when the strategy comes from a consensus among the whole Baseball Ops team). And yet, this particular call is hard to defend—bringing in a worse hitter to face a better pitcher is almost never the high-percentage move. But today’s game being what it was, of course it worked out anyway as Joe hit a 108-mph single the other way, tying the game at 9-9.
For as rough a day as Bryan Woo and the entire Cardinals pitching staff had, the Mariners’ bullpen actually held things together pretty well. The relief corps covered six innings with just 91 pitches and only needing four guys to do it. Aside from the home run off Criswell, they barely allowed a scratch. So the 9-9 tie held to go into the ninth.
This is where things got weird again.
J.P. Crawford caught the defense sleeping by squaring to bunt with the bases empty for just the ninth time in his career. Garver walked to reach for the third time. Between reaching three times, having a home run robbed, and catching Jordan Walker stealing, Garver gets his first-ever Sun Hat Award. Cole Young fought a nine-pitch battle only to take one off the foot, loading the bases for . . . Leo Rivas.
As predicted (by some), Little Leo has suffered from over-exposed-itis this season, coming into the game with a .224 wOBA that felt even worse than that. But he’s got a knack against these Cardinals, having walked them off in the 13th last September to complete a sweep and inspiring what’s probably the best call of Goldy’s career. Facing a guy who throws 100 and has been one of the best relievers of the year, Rivas did it again, hitting a line drive into center field to take the lead at 11-9. So look, it didn’t make a lot of sense and I don’t know if the game was good or bad, but it sure ended good.
