Mariners fire on all cylinders, avoid sweep with 10-3 win over Pirates

Mariners find cache of hidden bats, break them out in 10-3 win over Pittsburgh

If you took today’s early-start Mariners game off, it’s understandable. It’s been a brutal road trip east of the Mississippi so far for the Mariners, losing five straight to two teams not in playoff contention in the Tigers and Pirates, as the Mariners have struggled to score runs, as well as leaking runs out of their bullpen and making some uncharacteristic errors in the field. But if you did watch today, you were gifted a rare treat as the Mariners found their offense in a big way, defeating the Pirates 10-3 thanks to a strong effort from George Kirby and a solid offensive performance from the lineup. Every member of the starting lineup had at least one hit, and after dinking a bunch of singles yesterday but seeing nothing come of it, the Mariners found some power today, with three home runs (Cal Raleigh, Josh Rojas, Dominic Canzone) and a double (Victor Robles).

Facing Jake Woodford, a recent Triple-A callup, the Mariners got on the board early thanks to Cal Raleigh, who hit his 27th home run of the season, scoring Julio Rodríguez, who had hit an infield single.

If you’re counting, that brings Cal within one of tying Johnny Bench’s record for the most home runs by a catcher in their first four career seasons—Bench has 87, Rudy York 88, and Mike Piazza leads the group with 92.

Runs have been hard to come by on this road trip, and the Mariners haven’t done a great job of adding on after scratching out a couple runs, but the Mariners didn’t let up in the early innings. Josh Rojas led off the second with a ground ball base hit, and Leo Rivas worked a walk. Victor Robles, whose bat had cooled off a little of late, followed that up with a double to double the Mariners lead. But they weren’t done yet. In the fourth, Josh Rojas said, I got five on it:

Another pair of singles and a throwing error, allowing Julio to reach, scored another run, and Luke Raley hit a sacrifice fly to make it 7-0.

Woodford exited after that inning, but the Mariners weren’t any nicer to his replacement, former Mariner Ryder Ryan, as Dominic Canzone smoked a slider into center:

They got on Ryder again in the seventh, with Raley and Jorge Polanco starting off the inning with back-to-back singles (Dylan Moore came in to pinch-run for Polanco, still dealing with lingering knee soreness, and promptly swiped second). Ryder then hit Justin Turner with a pitch to load the bases with no outs. Canzone grounded into a double play that scored another run nonetheless, but Rojas kept the inning going with a walk, allowing Leo Rivas to collect another RBI with a single and push the lead out to 10-2.

Those two runs were all the Pirates got off George Kirby today, as the righty recovered from a career-worst start in Detroit to spin six strong against the Pirates. Kirby came out strong over the first two innings, setting down the side 1-2-3, before giving up an infield base hit and a walk in the third, although he got out of that with a pair of flyouts. He worked around a leadoff double to Oneill Cruz in the fourth, and a second walk in the fifth (both taken by Jared Triolo).

Kirby said he was trying to pitch “angry”—maybe not having to try that hard, as his last two outings haven’t been good—but that might have cost him some command, as he noted he was a little “wild” in the fifth and sixth. The sixth is where Kirby gave up his lone two runs of the game, falling behind Cruz 3-1 before giving up a one-out single and then leaving a fastball dead-red for Joey Bart to turn on for a two-run homer. Kirby had to fight for the last out of the inning as well, battling Bryan de la Cruz in a 3-2 count before getting him swinging after a 97 mph fastball at the top of the zone for his fifth and final strikeout of the game. At 97 pitches, that ended Kirby’s day, leaving Collin Snider, Austin Voth (who gave up one run to make it 10-3), and Troy Taylor—the rookie getting some more nice soft-landing low-leverage work—to cover the back three of the game. Maybe a slightly less-angry Kirby could have gone an extra inning, but the most important thing is holding the Pirates off the board as much as possible. “Pitch angry, happy, I don’t care, as long as he pitches well,” said an always-pragmatic Cal Raleigh postgame.

In addition to the improved offense and reliably solid pitching, the Mariners also cleaned some things up in the field. The ball really seems to slice when it gets up in the air at PNC Park, and Luke Raley made an adjustment on this ball that we didn’t see yesterday:

The infield defense was strong, as well: Dylan Moore, entering the game in place of Jorge Polanco, made this sweet diving stop at his natural position of second base:

The Mariners will now see if this sweep-saving game kicks off a string of better performances down the final stretch of the season or if this game was one blip in what’s been a dreadful road trip so far. The Astros have pulled out to a four-game lead in the division and the Mariners can’t afford to fall further behind their AL West rivals. However, they’ve frittered away the easier part of their road schedule and now have to roll into LA to face the very tough Dodgers. But today, Mariners fans can relish in the rare feat of every starter getting a hit and a three-homer effort, including Cal’s 27th of the season, extending his lead over all other catchers in MLB for homers. Thank goodness for Cal.