Mariners give us something to sing about, walk off the Giants 6-5 on Sing-Along Fireworks Night

Hanimal and the Danimals come together, right now, win 6-5

There’s a trope in musicals—especially Disney musicals—called an “I Want” song: the protagonist introduces us to their status quo, and tells us about how much more they want. Think “Part of their World” from The Little Mermaid, “I Wish” from Into the Woods, “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, or one of my favorites, “Going Through the Motions” from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode “Once More, With Feeling”:

Every single night
The same arrangement
I go out and fight the fight
Still I always feel
This strange estrangement
Nothing here is real
Nothing here is right

Over the course of the episode, Buffy explores her feelings of detachment and her lack of inspiration in doing her job keeping the world safe from vampires and assorted monsters (she died, she got brought back, it was a whole thing), as well as feeling unmoored back in the world of the living. It’s a pretty strong metaphor for living with clinical depression, or also for being a Mariners fan, or for the not-insignificant pie piece that is the overlap of those two categories.

Everything felt a bit muted at the ballpark today—ironic on Sing-Along Fireworks Night—the first day of the post-Scott-Servais era. With the roof covering the strikeout horn sounded a little subdued tonight, more like a foghorn cutting through the fall preview of an evening, 57 degrees and cloudy with the roof closed at game start and an advertisement for Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte running around the building. Even the de rigueur Chappell Roan song of the evening— “Pink Pony Club” tonight—sounded a touch bittersweet. Maybe they should have played Buffy’s lament instead: I’ve been going through the motions/Walking through the part/Nothing seems to penetrate/my heart (that last bit is a bit of a visual pun, you should watch it here if you haven’t. I guarantee it’s more entertaining than the first three-quarters of this game.)

The Mariners fell behind immediately in this one when two-hole hitter LaMonte Wade Jr.—a popular trade target among the Mariners fanbase but not someone the Giants seemed interested in moving—took a 2-2 sinker from Mariners starter Luis Castillo at the bottom of the zone in the first inning and tattooed it over the centerfield fence 402 feet for a solo home run. The thing about a team on the ropes is every effort gets questioned: could a fully healthy, fully engaged Julio have leapt and made a superheroic catch on that ball? Or was he just going through the motions?

That’s certainly how it felt to watch the Mariners hitters going up against 22-year-old Hayden Birdsong. Birdsong, who looks like an escapee from the Orioles Player Creation Factory who ran west, was making just his sixth big-league start with an ERA north of 5, but a soft landing against the 2024 Seattle Mariners offense is just what the doctor ordered for a young pitcher. Birdsong, wielding a devastating changeup, went through the order once without allowing a hit, striking out four, despite dealing with shaky command. The Mariners had pressure on him in the third despite not getting a hit, loading the bases on two walks and a hit by pitch, but Randy Arozarena couldn’t come through with the clutch two-out hit to get the Mariners on the board. Meanwhile, the Giants were able to add on against Luis Castillo in the fourth, when Heliot Ramos reached on a funky infield hit and Michael Conforto blasted a two-run homer off a poorly-located sinker to make it 3-0.

It took 65 pitches before Birdsong gave up his first hit of the night, off a slider that didn’t slide to Mitch Haniger. With two on (Polanco on via walk to open the inning) and none out, Dominic Canzone and Josh Rojas both flew out harmlessly to left field, unable to even move Polo over from second. That left things in Leo Rivas’s tiny grasp and, after taking a pitch that should have been called strike three, Rivas was eventually punched out on a pitch that was up in the zone. Cue the sad music.

The Mariners finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth, when Luke Raley, staying aggressive, took the second pitch he saw from new pitcher Sean Hjelle 414 feet over the left-center wall. Luke Raley is such a Xander (his eyes are somewhat beady).

Unfortunately, the Giants got that run back and more when Heliot Ramos absolutely crushed a slider into the very, very, tippy top of the back bleachers, putting the Giants lead at a seemingly unsurmountable 5-1. I must grudgingly direct you to watch it here simply because it is a feat of superhuman strength, one of Buffy’s assorted monsters roaring up from the Hellmouth.

I’d tell you about the potential comeback the Mariners staged in the seventh, when again they had two on with two outs, and again Randy Arozarena was up, but real talk, tonight I am also at the point of going through the motions, although without Buffy’s excellent collection of leather jackets and cute but practical boots.

But that was just Act One of the musical, ending on the False Tragedy. Real musical theatreheads know that Act Two is where things start to shift, with the final song pointing towards the direction the next act will take: Les Misèrables brings down the first curtain with “One Day More”, with each character poised to walk a new path on the eve of the Revolution; Frozen ends its first act with “Let It Go,” a song about breaking away from a past version of oneself; Wicked has the ringing, defiant “Defying Gravity.” Buffy has, in the grand layered-voice tradition of “Tonight” from West Side Story, “Walk Through the Fire”: an all-cast acknowledgement that they’ve come this far, and there’s nowhere to go but through, no matter how much it might hurt. And we are caught in the fire/The point of no return/So we will walk through the fire/And let it burn.

Facing wacky sub-submariner Tyler Rogers in the bottom of the eighth, the Mariners cracked five straight singles off the righty with their own layered-voice number, starting with Jorge Polanco, followed by Mitch Haniger, Justin Turner, Josh Rojas, and Leo Rivas, bringing the score to 5-4 with no outs. Luke Raley then parachuted a little single into left field to bring in the tying run, forcing Bob Melvin finally to go to his bullpen and get Ryan Walker, who struck out Julio for the first out of the inning and then got Cal to pop out, bringing up...Randy Arozarena, who struck out looking in an 0-2 count, in a particularly forgettable night for the Mariners’ major trade deadline acquisition.

Andrés Muñoz did his job in the top of the ninth, blowing through the Giants hitters 1-2-3, but Walker, on for a second inning of work, matched him stride-for-stride, striking out the side and sending the game to extras, and our second Chappell Roan break (“Red Wine Supernova”), getting the sing-along fireworks started early for the Chappell fans in the stands (and also the press box).

Collin Snider was on to guard the castle and while he couldn’t give Tyler Fitzgerald his first platinum sombrero (he already had his first golden one on the evening courtesy of Luis Castillo and Troy Taylor), Julio Rodríguez did rob him of a hit with an incredible diving catch.

The Mariners then opted to walk Wade Jr. to set up a hopeful double play and get a righty-righty matchup against Heliot Ramos, who you will remember from appearing on every highlight reel across baseball for his mammoth blast earlier. Snider struck him out chasing after a nasty sweeper, bringing up local kid—and also homer-doer—Conforto. Once again, Colli-Sni was major, getting Conforto to chop after a high fastball for strike three and stranding both runners.

The centerpiece number of “Once More, With Feeling” is the emotional turning point for Buffy as she’s finally honest with her friends about her feelings of resentment and disassociation: why she can’t just be happy: “Don’t give me songs; give me something to sing about.” It’s a refrain Mariners fans are familiar with: don’t just give us hotdogs from heaven (hilariously timed tonight as they floated down after Arozarena struck out to strand two runners on in the seventh, literal bread and circuses), or clever giveaways, or Salmon Races, or slickly-produced digital shorts (although yes, also, give those too), or sing-along fireworks nights: give us wins. Give us something to sing about.

By gum, that’s Leo Rivas’s music.

The Giants countered in the bottom of the tenth with lefty Erik Miller, another flamethrower out of their ‘pen. Miller stuck out Rojas on 99, bringing up Leo Rivas. But pinch-runner Dylan Moore stole third, meaning all Rivas had to do was get a ball in the air deep enough to score the speedy DMo—not an easy task, with the 6’5” Miller raining hellfire down on teeny-tiny Leo Rivas. With two strikes on him, deep in the fire, Rivas did even better:

At the end of the song, Buffy is gently admonished by Spike (who’s a vampire, but also kind of a love interest, it’s very complicated, just go watch the show): Life is just this: it’s living/You’ll get along/The pain that you feel/You only can heal by living.

Life is just living, some days better than others. And some nights have a storybook ending: the undersized hero, the longterm franchise player turned rookie manager, the battling back through the fire, everything real and right. At least for tonight.

Once more, with feeling: