Julio Rodríguez hits his second grand slam of the spring to push Mariners past Brewers, 10-6

Mariners come back to win penultimate spring tune-up

Like me stuffing myself with three-dollar tacos before leaving Arizona last week, the Mariners got in as many warm-weather extra-base hits as they could today in a 10-6 win over Milwaukee, racking up eight combined doubles and homers.

The Mariners first got on the board against Brewers Rule 5 pick Connor Thomas in the second, when Jorge Polanco laced his third homer of the spring over the left-field fence.

Rowdy Tellez followed that up with a really nice at-bat where he worked a full count, refusing to chase off the plate and hammering a cutter on the plate for a double that just missed going over the fence. J.P. Crawford singled sharply to push Rowdy to third, and Jared Sundstrom, playing in place of a sick Dylan Moore, did his job to get bat on ball and drive Tellez home with a groundout, making it 2-0.

After a crisp first two innings where he retired the side in order, Miller’s third inning of work wasn’t as sharp, although he wasn’t helped out by a throwing error from J.P Crawford that allowed Luis Lara, who had singled, to reach third base. He would eventually score on another single. Miller also didn’t help himself out with a throwing error on another pickoff attempt that allowed the tying run to score, but he was able to strike out Jake Bauers to end the inning, although at a damage to his pitch count; he needed 24 pitches to clear the inning, more than he threw in the first two innings combined.

After that small hiccup, Bryce came back out in the fourth and worked his most dominant inning yet, setting down the side 1-2-3 with two strikeouts—the inning-ending strikeout coming on an overturned ball call by Cal Raleigh, making him 9-for-9 on the spring in challenges. The two strikeouts both came on the new pitch, the knuckle curve, that Miller introduced last season. Miller followed that up with another scoreless inning, ending on a strikeout looking on a sinker that just kissed the bottom-left corner of the zone.

The Mariners broke the tie in the fifth, when new pitcher—and the first righty of the day for Milwaukee—Garrett Stallings left a 91.5 mph fastball right in the middle of the plate for Cal Raleigh—now batting lefty—to crush over the right-field fence to make the game 3-2.

Back out to work the sixth and drawing near the end of his day, Bryce gave up a leadoff single to Caleb Durbin but was able to strike out Andruw Monasterio swinging. Durbin then swiped two bases consecutively, maybe distracting Miller, who threw a pretty terrible fastball right in the heart of the plate to Wes Clarke, who hit his first homer of the spring to put the Brewers up 4-3. It was a sour end to what was otherwise a pretty great start for Miller. Gabe Speier cleaned things up for Miller, continuing his strong spring.

The Brewers got another run off Andrés Muñoz in the seventh, although it was due to some fluky luck where a ball that should have been an inning-ending double play instead glanced off Muñoz’s ankle. They tacked on another run in the eighth off Collin Snider, who gave up a solo homer to Blake Burke; while a lot of Snider’s homers this year have been Arizona specials, this one came off the bat at 110.8 and went 410 feet. Eduard Bazardo had to come in to get the final out, throwing one pitch to get one flyout. Also, the damage could have been worse except for an unassisted double play by Rowdy Tellez that was maybe my favorite thing I’ve seen all spring:

With a 3-for-4 day and this play, Rowdy earns the penultimate Sun Visor award for the spring.

Another pretty great thing happened in the bottom of the inning, though, as the Mariners jumped all over Brewers pitcher Evan McKendry. Polanco singled, and Tellez followed with a double down the line. J.P. singled to drive in both runners, bringing the Mariners within a run, and Sundstrom kept the line moving with a single of his own. Mastrobuoni walked to load the bases, bringing up Julio, who said no thank you very much to Cal Raleigh sharing the spring training home run lead with him, jumping on a sinker that was the first pitch he’d seen on the plate:

But Cal followed by taking the spring training homer lead right back, smashing a moonshot (30 degree launch angle, lol) on a first-pitch fastball that is a pretty terrible place to put a fastball to Cal Raleigh in any count.

Bazardo came back out to close out the game with a stress-free ninth.

Other notes:

• Luke Raley was in to face the lefty Thomas, continuing his exposure to lefties this spring, and while he didn’t come up with a hit in his first at-bat, he did work a long, eight-pitch at bat before striking out on a cutter. Facing a different lefty in the third, Bryan Hudson, Raley was able to jump on a first pitch sinker and hit it the opposite way for a single.
• Miller’s laborious third inning was exacerbated by the Brewers attempting three stolen bases; Cal Raleigh was able to cut one of those runners down with a perfect throw, but two did swipe on him, something that will probably stick in Cal’s craw for a while.
• Dad Strength Update: J.P. Crawford had a deep, hard-hit double (106.6 mph) in the fourth. He had three hits on the day.
• In addition to his ringing double earlier, Tellez also had a single in another nice plate appearance where he worked the count full and then dropped the barrel on a fastball down and in for a single.
• Cal lost his perfect string of challenges in the eighth inning, challenging a Collin Snider slider. No one is perfect, Cal, although you’re pretty close.
• This was the last televised game of the spring; the Mariners will play tomorrow at noon against their complex-mates the Padres, then head back up north in advance of Opening Day this Thursday.