Naylor’s gritty at-bat latest evidence these Mariners are built for October
By Matt CalkinsSeattle Times columnist
Eleven pitches. Eight straight foul balls. Each toss more tense than the one before.
A two-run single in the fifth inning isn’t going to go down in the annals of Mariners history, but that Josh Naylor at-bat Saturday exemplified the Mariners’ grit right now.
With the bases loaded and Seattle holding a 3-2 lead, the M’s first baseman drove home Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez via a ground ball that found light between the Angels first and second basemen. This came after staving off a strikeout in a plate-appearance that drew 11 pitches from Halos hurler Chase Silseth.
It wasn’t long ago when a fan might expect the outcome of such an at-bat to end unfavorably for the Mariners. On September 5, the M’s had lost their sixth game in their last seven outings and were watching their playoff hopes evaporate.
Now? They’re the hottest team in the league. Of course Naylor was going to come through.
Seattle scooped up its eighth straight win Saturday with a 5-3 victory over the Angels. T-Mobile Park has been turned into a euphoria pit, with the Mariners electrifying their fans from every angle.
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You want a walkoff win? You got two of those this week, one coming in the 13th inning and the other in the 12th. You want pitching dominance? How about Bryan Woo striking out a career-high 13 batters in six innings of work Saturday?
Raleigh remains stuck at 53 home runs — one short of Mickey Mantle’s switch-hitting record and three shy of Ken Griffey Jr.’s Mariners record — but he did have back-to-back games with a dinger at the start of this winning streak. But it’s been the collective effort that suddenly has the Mariners (81-68) looking like the favorites for the division, and maybe — the deepest postseason run they’ve ever had.
Advanced apologies if that last sentence prompts a jinx, but this stretch doesn’t feel like a fluke. It has featured a combination of offense, pitching and clutch moments that you typically see from a championship team. And the city has taken notice, with the 38,962 on hand Saturday maxing out the power of their larynxes.
Angels vs. Mariners Highlights
“It was unbelievable tonight. Obviously you always hope for a good crowd in a division game and the weekend, but it was unbelievable tonight,” Woo said. “I think from the time that I walked out before the game I could tell that it was going to be different. From the first inning to the last out, it was a playoff atmosphere.”
The Mariners jumped out to a 2-0 lead only for the Angels to tie it at 2-2 in the second inning. Then in the fourth, Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford socked a solo homer to right to put his team up 3-2. An inning later, Naylor came through with his two-run single.
One couldn’t have known for sure that that was the clincher Saturday, but it sure felt that way given the groove that Woo was in. When you face an 0-2 count for seven straight pitches and come up with the biggest hit of the game? Consider Saturday to be Naylor’s night.
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“I thought Josh Naylor’s at-bat was unreal,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “That’s just him, that’s what he does. He wears you down, he grinds you down, he’s a smart player, and that’s just such a great at-bat.”
Naylor also made a gold-glove worthy scoop on a 6-4-3 double play with no outs in the ninth, setting up the save for reliever Matt Brash.
Baseball may be the most unpredictable major team sport. A couple years ago, no team with one of the five best records in MLB made it to their league’s respective championship series. But now, the Mariners sit tied with Houston at the top of the AL West and two games ahead of the Rangers for the final wild-card spot. Could they potentially catch the Tigers (84-65) and snag a first-round bye? Maybe. A three-game series with the lowly Rockies toward the end of the month won’t hurt. But they also have series with the Astros and Dodgers, the latter of which is 83-65.
Right now, though, no foe seems overly intimidating for the M’s. The team that some thought had World Series potential after trade-deadline moves brought on Naylor and Eugenio Suárez is playing up to its potential.
A win Sunday would mark the Mariners’ longest winning streak of the season. Seemed impossible a week and a half ago. Seems inevitable now.
Matt Calkins: mcalkins@seattletimes .com. Matt Calkins has been a sports columnist with the Seattle Times since 2015, where he has covered national title games, got a Seahawk to design his apartment and once extracted a two-word quote from Marshawn Lynch.