Mariners rain on Rays bullpen parade, win 6-2

The entire outfield homers for the Mariners’ first back-to-back series win since June

The day after they struck out 17 times and looked like the Mariners team that’s been frustrating fans all year, the Mariners came through with another series win today, winning back-to-back series for the first time since mid-June, thanks to a three-homer performance from the outfield and a complete effort on both sides of the ball.

Actually, Luis Castillo was a bit shaky to open the game, running two 3-0 counts and three three-ball counts in the inning; he surrendered a two-out triple to Junior Caminero on a 3-0 meatball over the plate that he’s lucky didn’t get sent over the fence, but was able to come back to strike out Christopher Morel—again in a full count, though—to end the first without damage.

It was actually in a good count that Castillo gave up his first run of the day, with Josh Lowe—the only Ray who has consistently done much against the Mariners this season—took a 1-2 changeup at the bottom of the zone over the right-field fence for a solo home run.

However, the Mariners were able to tie it up in the second, as they continued swinging aggressively against the fastball-heavy Drew Rasmussen. Randy Arozarena led off the inning chopping after a fastball that rolled just fair; Rasmussen ill-advisedly attempted to field the ball, overthrowing and allowing Arozarena to go to second; he then took third aggressively on a shallow flyout from Jorge Polanco, and scored on a another flyout from Luke Raley. Hooray, small ball.

Rasmussen, as the opener, departed after the second inning, making way for the next-man-up Kevin Kelly, who presented a different look with a sinker about eight miles slower than Rasmussen’s, along with a heavy sweeper. Encouragingly, the Mariners adjusted their approach, with Mitch Garver getting called out on a very questionable pitch and Victor Robles working a full count before hitting the Mariners’ second swinging-bunt single of the day; un-encouragingly, J.P. Crawford lined into a double play to end that scoring threat, scalding the ball (104 mph EV) but directly at the shortstop.

Kelly only went another two-thirds of an inning, getting the first two outs of the fourth (including a near-miss on a deep flyout off the bat of Cal Raleigh) before giving up an infield hit deep at third to Arozarena. In came yet another Rays pitcher, this time lefty Tyler Alexander, a cutter-wielding reclamation project to face the switch-hitting Polanco, who grounded out.

In the fifth, Alexander gave up some hard contact: expectedly, to lefty-mashing Dylan Moore, who doubled, and less expectedly, to lefty Victor Robles, batting in the nine-hole today but still providing a spark anywhere he is. This pitch was up around Victor’s eyeballs and he still demolished it into the Rays’ bullpen.

Not to be outdone, Julio followed up his buddy Victor with a blast of his own, once again working a good count before catching up with this cutter in on his hands:

The Rays got one of those runs back in Castillo’s final inning of the day, taking advantage of some bad location and running up his pitch count even further: Brandon Lowe led off with a base hit, and two batters later Christopher Morel actually caught up with a Castillo fastball that he left right in the middle of the plate for another single. After a well-timed Pete Woodworth mound visit, Castillo was able to strike out the pesky Josh Lowe, but left a fastball on the plate for Dylan Carlson to score the Rays’ second run of the day on his 97th pitch of the afternoon.

As they did yesterday, the Rays were pesky outs, damaging Castillo’s pitch count: the Rays worked six full counts against Castillo early, along with a handful of three-ball counts, setting up their aggression in the sixth inning. Castillo could have helped himself out by getting into more favorable counts earlier, but some credit belongs to the Rays, who battled him into deep counts: five of the first 16 batters he faced worked counts five balls or deeper, which paid off for them in the sixth. Austin Voth was able to get Jose Caballero to pop out to staunch the bleeding there, however.

Coming back for the seventh, Voth picked up a strikeout on a cutter against the catcher Ben Rortvedt, and then broke out his good vintage curveball to rapture Yandy Díaz’s soul from his body. We missed this Austin Voth! Collin Snider had the eighth and looked unruffled from giving up what would be the difference-maker home run yesterday (on paper, at least, in a game where the offense strikes out 17 times no fault belongs to the pitching staff), slicing through the top of the Rays lineup with ease.

In the bottom of the eighth, Randy Arozarena looked around and realized he was the only member of the Mariners outfield who hadn’t gone yard yet today, and quickly put a stop to that, tagging sacrificial lamb Alexander for another run:

Andrés Muñoz closed the door in the ninth, blowing through the Rays 1-2-3 on just 13 pitches, with 8/13 pitches for strikes: a useful sharpening of the blade, even if he didn’t collect a save.

Postgame, Dan Wilson made sure to highlight a couple plays that might not show up in the box score or loom as large as the homers, highlighting especially both Luke Raley’s left-on-left sac fly and a ten-pitch battle from Jorge Polanco that ended in a single, which he called “outstanding” and “awesome”, as well as praising Julio for his patience at the plate and the hard-hit balls he had that went for outs. Yesterday when Wilson talked postgame about hard the team battled, it fell a little flat in wake of the 17-strikeout performance. Today it felt much more earned, even as his message was the same.

“It’s a matter of time. You put good, competitive at-bats up, you’re going to get good results eventually,” he said postgame, also praising the clubhouse for having “a lot of life left” despite how late it is in the season and all the changes and challenges they’ve undergone.

“We can’t get too far ahead,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go in this thing. But to be able to look at something like this and see a little progress, and just continue on it, keep harping on it, we’ll see where it continues to take us.”

Now the challenge is for them to bring that steadiness to the road, as well: the next test for this new-look Mariners team and its leadership.