Cal Raleigh’s homer in 10th inning gives Mariners win in Toronto
TORONTO – In the aftermath of Friday’s loss, where the offense was largely absent other than his two-run homer, a beaten-up and exhausted Cal Raleigh admitted things needed to change for the slumping Mariners.
“We need to get better, myself included, especially with runners on,” he said. “Things aren’t going our way now. But it’s our job to turn the tide and make our own luck. You can’t wait around for it just to happen. We have to do something about it.”
Raleigh and his teammates did something about it on Sunday afternoon in a scintillating 10-8 victory over the Blue Jays.
In a place where they had their most memorable and meaningful comeback victory in two decades – the clinching game in the 2022 American League Wild Card series – the Mariners found that magic again with eerie similarity.
Down 8-4 going into the sixth inning after a barrage of runs were scored off Marco Gonzales early in the game, Seattle chipped away at the lead over the final four innings, forcing it into extra innings where Raleigh smashed a two-run homer – his second in as many at-bats – for the go-ahead runs.
Matt Brash, who was born and raised in Kingston, Ontario, which is just over 155 miles east of Toronto, notched the first save of his career on home soil in front of friends and family.
“The way this road trip has played out here the last four or five days, being down in the game like that, kudos to our guys,” Servais said. “We kept fighting and kept scratching and clawing. It was really a team effort in a game we needed to win. When you’re down like we were, it’s easy to pack it in and say, ‘Hey, it’s not our time up here in Toronto.’ But our guys didn’t do that, credit to them.”
Less than 24 hours after being held scoreless and striking out 19 times in a frustrating 10-inning loss and having a postgame meeting where only one person – Servais – did the talking about the expectations and priorities on this team following an abysmal stretch of baseball, the Mariners bounced back in impressive fashion.
“It’s about energy,” Servais said. “You’ve got to bring it every day and you can’t get so consumed with yourself or your personal struggles where you lose sight of the big picture here. I thought our guys did a nice job with that. They got away from themselves. They got focused on the team. And then good things happened.”
Not much good had happened for the Mariners after Taylor Trammell’s first-inning grand slam in his first at-bat of the season.
Reinstated from the injured list just before the game and starting left field, Trammell launched the second pitch he saw from Chris Bassitt into the right field club area.
Given a 4-0 lead before he fired a pitch, Gonzales couldn’t contain a Blue Jays lineup filled with talented right-handed hitters. After scoring just one run in 10 innings on Saturday, Toronto wasn’t going to be held down.
The Blue Jays cut the lead in half immediately in the bottom of the first. Matt Chapman, who came into today with batting a league-best .372, ripped a double into the left field corner to score a pair of runs.
Toronto erased Seattle’s lead in the second inning. It started with a throwing error from fill-in first baseman Sam Haggerty to Gonzales as he was covering first. The free out loomed even larger when Seattle couldn’t turn a double play on Santiago Espinal’s one-out chopper to J.P. Crawford. A hustling Espinal beat out a relatively passive throw from second baseman Kolten Wong.
“We didn’t help Marco out much defensively,” Servais said.
Two free outs in the inning didn’t bode well for Gonzales. He gave up a single to George Springer and then let a 1-0 changeup leak over the middle to Bo Bichette.
The mistake pitch was sent off the facing of the upper deck in center field in an instant for a three-run homer and a 5-4 lead. The mammoth blast measured 460 feet and had 113-mph exit velocity. It was the longest homer hit by the Blue Jays this season.
Gonzales’ outing ended after he allowed three more runs in the third inning. Danny Jansen pulled a double into the left field corner to score two runs, and Espinal scored Jansen with a single to left-center that made it 8-4.
After going hitless in the first two games of the series and striking out seven times in eight at-bats, including four on Saturday, Teoscar Hernandez blasted his team-high seventh homer into the Mariners bullpen to make it 8-5.
In the eighth inning, Raleigh made a mess of a fastball from reliever Anthony Bass, sending a line-drive into deep right-center for a two-run homer that cut the lead to 8-7.
After striking out four times in Saturday’s loss, Raleigh moved on quickly from the failures.
“A couple years ago, I wasn’t able to do that,” he said. “But I’ve learned so much with so many great people around. I’ve got a lot of help. I’ve been able to kind of flush things a little easier. Coming in today, I was just trying to square something up and not trying not to do too much. Yesterday, I was trying to do too much. I think everybody was kind of feeling that way when we’re not winning a lot.”
With closer Jordan Romano and set-up man Erik Swanson unavailable due to workload, Toronto went to right-hander Yimi Garcia to close out the win. Tommy La Stella worked a leadoff walk and was lifted for pinch runner Jose Caballero.
With two outs and Caballero on second, Crawford, who tied that wild card game with a bloop double, came to the plate.
He fell behind 0-2 immediately, but wouldn’t give in, eventually lining a crisp single to right field to tie the game.
“I just didn’t want to strike out,” Crawford said. “He has really good stuff, and I just wanted to get a good swing on a ball.”
The Blue Jays had a chance to win it in the bottom of the ninth.
Chapman doubled off Paul Sewald to start the inning to put the winning run immediately in scoring position. But Kevin Kiermaier popped out on a bunt attempt and Alejandro Kirk hit a line drive right at Kolten Wong for the second out of the inning. Sewald pitched around Daulton Varsho and walked him with first base open and back-up catcher Danny Jansen coming to the plate.
Jansen hit a deep fly ball to left field that looked to be foul off the bat. Trammell didn’t give up on it, raced into the corner and leapt into the stands, catching the ball through the fans and falling back on to the field.
“I’m glad nobody put their hands up in the way or anything like that,” he said. “You know, just some nice people in Canada, I guess.”