Mariners end their 2022 regular season in dramatic fashion with walk-off over Detroit
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Of course, in the final regular season game of the 2022 season, the Seattle Mariners had to walk it off. For the 13th time on the season, a franchise record, Seattle walked off for a win, this time doing so in the series and regular season finale. With a unique roster due to the Mariners trying to rest key players, an equally unique game unfolded over the course of nine complete innings. It took a Ty France bases loaded single to end it, sending the team to Toronto on a high note.
Marco Gonzales gave Seattle seven solid innings (Photo by Proof N the Play)
Marco gives his all on the mound
Prior to his start in the regular season finale, starting pitcher Marco Gonzales was essentially going to give the Mariners everything he had in order to give the bullpen as much rest as possible, per manager Scott Servais. Gonzales, one of the longest current tenured Mariners on the current roster alongside Mitch Haniger, has often been the point of criticism for fans, as his bad starts have been just that, bad. The Gonzaga product, likely not pitching in the Wild Card round, gave the Mariners seven quality innings of work.
While Gonzales is pinned with four runs, three of them labeled as earned, two of those were scored off of a throwing error by Abraham Toro. A routine ground ball was fired from Toro after he fielded the ball bare handed, and the resulting throw was far offline and out of reach for Ty France at first. France dove in order to attempt to catch the ball but missed, and two runs scored for Detroit. All in all, Gonzales giving seven solid innings is all you can ask for. Given the situation in regards to rest, he did his teammates a favor.
Luis Torrens started at second base for Seattle (Photo by Proof N the Play)
Doubleheader heroes carry their performances into the next day
Two heroes from yesterday's double header, Luis Torrens and Abraham Toro, came to play in this ballgame. While yes, as previously mentioned, Toro had the costly fielding error that allowed Detroit to plate two runs. On the offensive side of things though, both recorded multi-hit games in a tight close ballgame. The highlight of the performances of those two was Luis Torrens’ two-run blast to left field.
Torrens belted a hanging breaking ball into the Detroit bullpen in the bottom of the sixth, scoring teammate Mitch Haniger. The homer gave Seattle the lead back (4-3 at the time), and continued an impressive past few days for Torrens. For those of you not aware of the things that Torrens had to do in the past few days: Pitched an inning of relief, played catcher just a few hours later, played second base. All in the past two days.
Ty France hit the walk off single in the bottom of the 9th (Photo by Proof N the Play)
Solid form heading into the franchise’s first playoff series in 21 years
If you have been following along with us all season on our Mariners blogs, you will know that I have been generally frustrated with the direction of the hitting that Seattle has displayed over the course of the year. Reliance on the long ball, failure to play small ball, failure to drive in runners in scoring position, sometimes just looking ice cold. In this past series against the Tigers, it has not always been pretty, but Seattle has been pretty efficient at times.
There have been multiple innings where I wondered to myself, what if you had played like that all season? At the end of the day, it is a positive sign to see the Seattle bats continue to perform, just at a more sustainable and reliable clip. If the Mariners can keep this up, and get the starting pitching that they have all season, expect to see us back at T-Mobile Park sooner rather than later.
Julio Rodriguez led off the bottom of the first with a solo homer (Photo by Proof N the Play)
Quick notes
Today’s walk-off win marks the Mariners 13th of the season matching a franchise record set in 2009
The Mariners have now won 90 games in 2 consecutive seasons.
Today’s win is the Mariners Major League leading 34th 1-run win of the season and they are now the first team to have sole possession of the Major League lead in 1-run wins in back-to-back seasons since Cincinnati Reds in 1897-98.
Since Aug. 1 the Mariners lead the majors with 86 home runs.
The unofficial attendance total this season at T-Mobile Park is 2,287,465.
Julio Rodríguez has the most leadoff home runs (6) in a season in Mariners history, surpassing Ichiro Suzuki (5) in 2002.
He finishes his rookie year ranked 1st in home runs (28), 2nd in RBI (75), 3rd in hits (145), 2nd in extra base hits (56), 1st in total bases (260), 2nd in runs (84), and 2nd in stolen bases (25) among MLB rookies this season.
What’s next?
The 6th of October is a travel day for Seattle. The next game on the calendar for the Mariners is game one of their Wild Card series against the Toronto Blue Jays, up in Canada. Games one and two will be broadcast on ESPN, first pitch time of 1:07PM PST for each. There will be watch parties at T-Mobile Park for the games, with a $10 entry fee for standard ticket holders, and if you are a season ticket holder, $5. If necessary, game three of the series would take place on Sunday, with a 11:07AM PST on ABC.