Randy Arozarena delivers walkoff base hit, Mariners gain ground in AL wild-card race

SEATTLE – For the first time since he’s been a member of the Mariners, T-Mobile Park was transformed into RandyLand.

With the Mariners in must-win mode, Randy Arozarena, who earned a reputation for being a performer in clutch situations with the Rays, delivered in the bottom of the ninth Saturday evening.

With the bases loaded and one out, Arozarena’s sinking line drive to the left side of the infield couldn’t be gloved by shortstop Josh Smith, allowing Victor Robles to race home for a 5-4 walkoff victory for the Mariners.

It was Arozarena’s fourth career walkoff hit and his first with the Mariners.

With the win, the Mariners have taken the first three games of the four-game series vs. Texas to improve to 76-73. They also moved into a tie with the Tigers, sitting 21/2 games back of the Twins for the third American League wild-card spot. With the Astros also winning, the Mariners still remain 41/2 games back in the AL West standings.

Arozarena fell behind 0-2 to Jose LeClerc, but didn’t seem fazed by the situation, squaring up a 97-mph fastball that was on the inner half of the plate.

Seattle loaded the bases when Robles doubled to right with one out and stole third base with Julio Rodriguez at the plate. The Rangers intentionally walked Rodriguez, who had smashed a solo homer earlier in the game. Cal Raleigh worked a walk to load the bases.

Making his 30th start of the season, Logan Gilbert couldn’t quite replicate his previous outing of nearly eight innings of dominance.

With his command a little sporadic and struggling to put away hitters, he labored through parts of his outing.

Gilbert pitched six innings, allowing four runs on six hits, with a walk and seven strikeouts.

The four runs allowed came on a pair of two-run homers.

Pitching with a 2-0 lead in the top of the third, Gilbert threw a 2-2 cutter that didn’t get quite far enough in on the hands of No. 9 hitter Leody Taveras. Instead, Taveras pulled it deep into the right-field seats for his 10th homer of the season.

In the fifth inning, a 3-2 slider to Marcus Semien that was supposed to go the lower outside quadrant of the strike zone, instead backed up and hung in the middle of the plate. Semien hit a towering fly ball to left field that just got over the wall and out of the reach of a leaping Luke Raley.

Down 4-2, the Mariners didn’t wait around to try and claw their way back into the game.

Facing hard-throwing rookie Jack Leiter, who had been bumped out of the rotation with Scherzer’s return, Raley fought his way from being down 0-2 count to work it full.

With Raleigh having led off the inning with a walk, Leiter didn’t want to issue a walk and put the tying run on base. He went to his four-seam fastball.

Raley was ready for it, smashing the 97-mph heater into deep right-center for a game-tying two-run homer and setting a career high with 20 homers this season.

After a lacing a hard single to left field in the first inning off Scherzer, Rodriguez went deep in the third inning.

The 446-foot blast was the fourth longest of Rodriguez’s career, per MLB Statcast, and his second-longest homer at T-Mobile Park.