The Seattle Mariners are heating up at the right time. And their most recent success has been coming off the bat of their franchise star.
Julio Rodriguez went 4-for-6 with a home run and accounted for a quarter of the team’s 16 hits to lead the Mariners to an 8-4 win over the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
The win improved Seattle’s record to 80-75. The win kept the Mariners 5.0 games below the Houston Astros in the American League West. They’re now 1.5 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot (half a game behind the Detroit Tigers) after the Minnesota Twins’ scheduled game against the Boston Red Sox was postponed due to rain.
“Ton of positives tonight,” Seattle manager Dan Wilson said in a postgame interview Saturday. “Really showed a lot tonight. … So many positives today to look for and a chance tomorrow now to come out and sweep the series.”
Rodriguez had two home runs in Friday’s 8-2 win against the Rangers and wasted no time picking up where he left off.
He hit a solo home run to right field on the first pitch of the game to immediately give the Mariners a 1-0 lead. Jorge Polanco followed his teammate’s lead and drove in a run with a single to put Seattle up by two through the first inning.
But Texas showed more fight than it did on Friday and Josh Smith hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the third to pull the home team even with the Mariners at 2-2.
Rodriguez pulled Seattle back ahead with an RBI single in the top of the sixth. Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena also had RBI singles in the same inning to give the Mariners a 5-2 lead.
But once again, the Rangers didn’t go away that easy. Ezequiel Duran had an RBI single and Travis Jankowski was walked with the bases loaded. Those two scores cut Seattle’s lead down to 5-4 through six innings.
The Mariners got a spark after Victor Robles (pinch running for Polanco), stole third and, without breaking stride, sprinted home on a wild pitch in the top of the ninth. Rodriguez put the final nail in the coffin and added the final two runs of the game in the same inning with a single that scored JP Crawford and Dylan Moore for the eventual final of 8-4.
In the last two road games against Texas, Rodriguez has gone 7-for-11 with three home runs and nine RBIs.
“(Rodriguez) has just proven time and time again that he’s hitting the ball hard,” Wilson said. “He’s hitting the ball on the line, he’s able to leave any part of the ball park. Going to right field to start the game was a a big lift and being able to get those two runs later in the ball game were huge as well. He’s just swinging the bat really well and when he comes up there anything can happen at this point.”
Seattle still needs a lot of help from other teams to make the playoffs. The Tigers and Twins own the tiebreaker over the Mariners. And unless Seattle wins all seven of its remaining games (a streak that it hasn’t hit all season), then the Kansas City Royals will earn the tiebreaker, too.
But Kansas City is just two games above Seattle. And Minnesota will play a doubleheader against Boston on Sunday to make up for the postponed game on Saturday.
There’s a possibility that the Royals and Twins both fall out of the playoffs and make way for Detroit and the Mariners.
But of course, Seattle still has to win its games. It still has just a 9.9% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs.
But with how the Mariners have been playing, the playoffs could very well be in their future.
But one thing’s for sure. Seattle is going to make it interesting.
