Mariners take a trip to Randyland, win 6-2 over Royals

Randy Arozarena breaks a homer drought and helps the Mariners to a 6-2 win

The Mariners defeated the Royals in their series opener tonight, 6-2, sparked by a two-homer night from Randy Arozarena, who celebrated with his fans in “Randyland” in left field.

If you have ever played Candyland, you know what an interminable and frustrating game it can be: someone is right on the precipice of winning, only to draw one of the cards that lands you all the way back, wiping out your progress on the board. Candyland is the only board game I’ve ever cheated at, and only for the purposes of ending a game that’s coughed up a series of death rattles but refuses, cockroach-like, to succumb to the blessed feeling of putting that nightmarish board back in its box. I’d call Candyland the worst game ever (right behind Chutes and Ladders, designed in the same Kafkaesque factory), except in order to do that, it would have to be a game, which it is not.

Randy Arozarena might have felt trapped in that same endless feedback loop, stuck on 99 home runs since early June, after a two-homer May. Crossing that century mark isn’t quite the rare-air achievement it was in the dead ball era, but it’s still a significant milestone for any player, and one that, he admitted postgame, had been at the back of his mind for some time. Tonight Randy was able to achieve terminal velocity from 99, flying over the 100-homer mark with a two-homer night (yes, equal to his output in May, and one more than he’d hit in the rest of June).

“Tonight was Randy’s night,” said manager Dan Wilson postgame, always a master of understatement.

For a while, though, things weren’t going the Mariners’ way. The Royals struck first in the third inning, doing damage with two outs. Kyle Isbel poked a slider through an open left side of the infield, followed by a solid line-drive single from Jonathan India—the only well-struck ball the Royals would have in this inning but they wound up with a run anyway, because Bobby Witt Jr. is not human, and despite seeing not a single pitch in the strike zone, was able to bloop a slider into center for a 1-0 advantage for the Royals.

But other than that one hiccup, George Kirby was ruthlessly efficient against the Royals, allowing just the one run on those three hits but otherwise shutting out Kansas City. The slider was especially wicked today, racking up five whiffs and five called strikes along with several ground ball outs; he was also able to use his curveball when needed as a change-of-pace pitch to get fouls and weak contact outs to mix in with his fastball, which showed some good zip today at 96 mph early on before tailing off some—although he was able to dig down and pull out 96 one more time to get Maikel Garcia for a swinging strikeout on his final out of the game.

“The last two starts I’ve really focused on my mechanics out there,” said Kirby. “I feel like a lot of times I’ve been rushing certain off-speed stuff to get it in the dirt, like rushing my mechanics, so I’m trying to stay nice and balanced and focused out there, and I think it’s been helping to sync my arm up better and get in the zone.”

On the other side, the Mariners took some time to get accustomed to Michael Wacha and his kitchen sink of pitches, mustering just one hit over the first 4.2 innings of the game. It looked like they’d go into the fifth inning still scoreless, but with two outs, Randy drew the card that would free him from the prison of 99:

The Mariners had a chance to extend the lead there—Dominic Canzone and Donovan Solano hit back-to-back singles (“single” for Canzone, as it looked like Witt Jr. would have a play) and Mitch Garver walked to load the bases, but Miles Mastrobuoni grounded out to end the threat. With the Mariners fresh off a series where every game went to extras (and the Rangers playing in yet another extra-inning contest tonight), it felt a little deflating not to get more there. Still, as Wilson noted postgame, all those extra pitches—not including a 12-pitch Solano walk earlier in the game that went for naught—did seem to take a toll on Wacha.

That toll would be paid in the fifth. After the Mariners small-balled in the go-ahead run—three straight base hits loaded the bases for Cal Raleigh, who dutifully hit a sac fly to put the Mariners up one —Randy decided to turn T-Mobile Park into a full-size replica of Randyland:

Funcle Cal Raleigh added on with his 33rd homer of the season, putting a little more breathing room between him and Aaron Judge, who had added another two homers against the hapless A’s this weekend to put him at 30. Chants of “MVP” rang out throughout the night, on a night the Mariners set up as a push for Raleigh’s All-Star campaign (there were “Vote Cal” t-shirts and a gimmick where all the players had posterior-themed walkup songs).

After being pitched around in the Rangers series, Cal Raleigh wasn’t going to let another opportunity go by, knocking this curveball that lands well off the plate to dead center, proving once again he’s much more than a pull-side hitter.

“He stayed on it really well and drove it to where it was pitched,” said Wilson. “That was a really nice swing, a really nice approach...That’s a pitch where if you try to pull it, you’re going to probably roll over on it, but he stayed on it, stayed through it, and put a really nice swing on it.”

But as Dan Wilson said, tonight belonged to Randy. Postgame, Arozarena said when he hit his 100th, he flashed back to two things: first, his first-ever big league homer, as a full-circle moment; and second, a game in Cuba’s professional league, when as an eighteen-year-old he had a three-homer game and realized that he had the ability to play at the highest level. “It kind of makes me think about the kind of batter I was back then, because I didn’t think back then that I was a batter who hit for power,” he said through translator Freddy Llanos. “I was more of a guy who just hit balls to the opposite side of the field. So to hit 101 home runs, it just amazes me.”

Arozarena said he felt like he’d been “searching” for the 100th homer for a month, and today, without thinking about it, he hit two. Could this signal a hot stretch coming for Arozarena, especially considering how T-Mobile Park plays in the warmer months?

Arozarena deflected the question, saying what he’s most excited about is hearing the fans hyping him up for the rest of the summer. “When they chant my name, it gives me that energy, a little bit of extra strength. It makes me want to go up there and hit the ball as hard as I can, do my best out there. It just juices me up internally.”

But the significance of his achievement isn’t lost on him.

“I’ve hit 100 homers in the best baseball league in the world,” he said with a smile.