Mariners win 7th straight to keep pace in AL West race
By Ryan Divish Seattle Times staff reporter
Their run of unexpected hitting heroes and their win streak continued again Friday night.
Two nights ago it was Leo Rivas with the unlikely walkoff homer to beat the Cardinals in the bottom of the 13th inning. Less than 24 hours earlier, rookie Harry Ford hit a walkoff sacrifice fly in his fourth MLB plate appearance to beat the Angels in 12 innings.
So who was it this time?
It was back-up catcher Mitch Garver, in the seventh inning, with a home run.
The veteran catcher, who’s had his struggles since signing with Seattle last season, smashed a solo homer off right-handed reliever Connor Brogdon to give the Mariners a 2-1 lead. The Mariners bullpen made sure it would be a 2-1 victory with more stellar relief work, including Andrés Muñoz’s 35th save of the season.
The Mariners improved to 80-68 with their seventh straight win. Seattle remained tied with the Houston Astros atop the AL West and two games up on the Texas Rangers for the third and final wild-card spot.
“It looked like it might be extra innings again as we got down toward the end, but you know Garv coming up just with a clutch, clutch homer right there,” manager Dan Wilson said. “The bullpen has been incredible. And they slammed the door to bring this one home.”
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It’s not that Garver’s homer was surprising. It was the 106th of his career, but that it came off a hard-throwing right-handed reliever wasn’t as expected. Garver has been in modified platoon role as the designated hitter and a part-time role as the back-up catcher. The Mariners have tried to find ways to get him to face left-handed pitching as much as possible for a reason.
Coming into the game, he had a .170/.256/.259 slash line with three homers, 11 RBI, 12 walks and 41 strikeouts in 125 plate appearances vs. right-handed pitchers. Conversely, he had 141 plate appearances vs. left-handed pitchers, posting a .248/.340/.421 slash line with four doubles, a triple, five homers, 17 RBI, 17 walks and 35 strikeouts in 141 plate appearances.
But with Wilson still reluctant to remove Garver from his catcher spot for a pinch hitter, the manager didn’t play the splits in a 1-1 game. Garver took advantage of a 95-mph fastball left over the inner half of the plate on a 1-2 count, sending a deep fly ball over the wall in left field for the lead.
“I’m picking good pitches to hit, trying to hit him as hard as I can,” Garver said. “Actually, my three outs before that were all one hoppers to the shortstop. So actually my last one, I tried to aim at the shortstop and hit it over the fence.”
A key member of the Rangers’ world championship team in 2023, Garver knows that winning games with contributions from unexpected players in unexpected situations is vital.
“That’s what championship teams do.,” he said. “You never know who’s gonna do it that night. Could be Cal (Raleigh), could be Julio (Rodríguez). Those are the usual suspects. But it could be Leo (Rivas), it could be myself. You never know, man. That’s why we’ve got a good team. We’ve got good bond in that clubhouse, and everybody’s pulling for each other.”
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It certainly has inspired a level of confience.
“it’s a dangerous lineup,” he said. “I mean, one through nine, we’ve got guys one after the other, somebody can hurt you at any time, and we’ve got the pitching to back it up, and we’ve got the attitude as well.”
Garver showed a little attitude after making contact on the no-doubt blast, looking at the barrel of his bat, then flipping it toward the dugout and staring at his teammates before starting his trot.
“We can feel it,” he said. “I mean, we are right there. We know what we have to do to win these games and to win this division. It’s just in our reach, and we’re going to keep going.”
Facing an old friend in lefty Yusei Kikuchi, the Mariners grabbed a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning. With one out, Raleigh hit the first of his two doubles in the game. He would later score on Jorge Polanco’s two-out double into the left field corner.
It was the fifth straight game where Polanco has hit a double. He has an extra basehit in seven straight games.
It seemed like it might be enough as Luis Castillo gave the Mariners six scoreless innings, allowing a hit with two walks and five strikeouts. He looked more like the pitcher that, along with Bryan Woo, helped carry the rotation in the first half of the season.
With the bullpen taxed from two straight days of marathon games, the Mariners tried to stretch Castillo for a few more outs. At 93 pitches, they brought him out to start the seventh inning, hoping he could get through it without incident.
But when Luis Rengifo led off with a single to left field, Wilson decided to go to his bullpen. Right-hander Carlos Vargas entered the game but couldn’t prevent the inherited runner from scoring. A wild pitch advanced Rengifo to second. Logan Davidson hit a hard groundball down the first base line that tipped off the glove first baseman Luke Raley on his diving attempt. It went for a run-scoring double, tying the game at 1-1.