Mariners throw singles party in Surprise, defeat Rangers 9-5

Canzone homers again, Mariners stack singles to win against their AL West rivals

Today the Mariners traveled to Surprise, land of retirement communities and strip malls, to take on the reigning World Series Champions, the Texas Rangers. Both teams ran out lesser versions of their full-strength lineups, but the end result was similar to what we’ve seen from both teams this spring: lots of offense, a little less pitching, and an eventual 9-5 win for the visiting Mariners.

It wasn’t the most scintillating pitching matchup, with Tyson Miller stepping in for Bryce Miller, who pitched on the backfields today rather than giving the Rangers an extra look at him and his new bag of tricks. Meanwhile, Seattle-born former Mariner Adrian Sampson made the start for Texas, and the Mariners got to him early: J.P. Crawford led off the game with a double, Cal Raleigh singled to bring home J.P., and then Dominic Canzone sent this baseball to live in a retirement community down the road:

Tyson Miller pitched two clean innings, working around a sun double and getting helped out by Cade Marlowe making a difficult play on a ball hit deep over his head in center; he struck out two, both on the slider. But the Rangers took a 4-3 lead against Brett de Geus, who struggled against his former team; the Rangers were ultra-aggressive against de Geus, who threw four pitches total to the first four batters, resulting in a hit by pitch, flyout, Baltimore chop base hit, and RBI single, all on the sinker. The next three batters reached via ground rule double, walk and RBI single before de Geus was able to get Davis Wendzel to ground into a double play. de Geus’s stuff remains nasty but he struggled to command it today.

The Mariners tied it up in the fourth with some small ball: Luke Raley (yay!) and Cade Marlowe singled, Brian Anderson walked to load the bases, and after a fielder’s choice out at home, the run eventually scored on a wild pitch. Whatever works. J.P. Crawford then came through with a two-run, line-drive single to give the Mariners a 6-4 advantage. With two outs.

Ryne Stanek made his Mariner debut and looked about as big and nasty as advertised, sitting between 97-99 on the fastball, which he threw almost exclusively. It wasn’t a clean inning: he gave up a base hit, and needed an exceptional diving play by Raley in right to clear the inning—but he also struck out Justin Foscue swinging after 97.

The Rangers got a run back in the bottom of the fifth when Adolis García pounced on the first pitch he saw from Joey Krehbiel, but the Mariners—now playing mostly their reserves— took that run back again with some more small ball off Austin Pruitt, who they touched up for four singles (the RBI coming on a parachute shot into left from Michael Papierski). Another run scored on a Canzone sac fly to make it 8-5 Mariners.

Hard-throwing prospect Troy Taylor worked the bottom of the sixth. Taylor lit up the radar gun at Surprise, touching 98 at times, but the Rangers were generally able to get the bat on it, with a groundout, a line drive base hit, and a deep flyout on the pitch. Taylor also struggled to command his slider, which sometimes slid a little too far to be tempting to hitters, although he did get some ugly empty swings on it when it was going where he wanted it to; he utterly baffled Blaine Crim with the pitch, striking him out on the slider.

The Mariners added another run in the eighth as Nick Solak got a little revenge on his old team with an RBI double deep into the gap;; that scored Michael Papierski, who was on base again because that seems to be all Ol’ Mikey Papps does. We will forgive Solak for ruining the theme of the day being “hot singles near Surprise.”

A side of fries for all these singles:

• Josh Rojas worked the World’s Longest Walk off Jacob Latz (12 pitches!) before Raleigh flew out to end the inning.
• In the sixth Axel Sanchez recorded his first hit in a big-league spring training game, a sharply hit ball to the left side of the infield that the shortstop couldn’t corral (everything is ruled a hit in spring, but this was legitimately a hit). Yay, Axel, who also did this:

• Also in the sixth with two outs, Alberto Rodríguez worked a walk to load the baes again. Hooray for improved patience at the plate for Berto.
• Jordan Holloway, who was the recipient of that nice defensive play by Sanchez, worked a very fast 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout. Sean Poppen did the hero’s work of pitching two clean innings at the end of a spring training game staffed mostly by single-A players, including one wearing a jersey with “00” ( Mariners Bill Knight), and sending everyone home on time. It might be a party, but it’s still Surprise, and the sidewalks roll up promptly at 5.