Back-to-back blasts by Crawford and France power Mariners to game two victory over Athletics
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Same result, much different path to victory for the Seattle Mariners in their second of a four-game series against the Oakland Athletics. Following last night’s big blast of offensive firepower, Seattle cooled off tremendously, relying on a three-run fifth inning to get a second straight win. It wasn’t quite the offensive performance that you’d hope to see for the Mariners, who did have a few balls die at the warning track, but getting the win is the part we’ll remember when we tally the totals near the end of the season. Following a two-run first inning, Seattle starting pitcher Marco Gonzales was able to lock things down and the bullpen sealed the deal for the Mariners to get back to .500.
“Just enough, just enough tonight. It’s been a while since we were on a top, top end about a one run win. Great job. Obviously our bullpen tonight, nine up night down. Just enough offense, couple big homers. Nice win, we’re used to playing in a lot of those games this year, there’s a lot of those that haven’t gone our way. But we got it done tonight. Really good pitching. Obviously Marco., really think they hit the ball that hard against him but obviously give up a couple of there in the first inning and then settled in and you look up and he gives you a quality start which is exactly what we needed. And again, can’t say enough about the guys in the bullpen, nine up nine down really sharp. It was great to see, and we needed it tonight with their starter Medina, he had good stuff. I mean, we knew coming in he’s a young pitcher he’s got really good fastball, good quality secondary pitches, knew it wasn’t going to be a big, high scoring night. But you know, JP Crawford, our home run hitter, you know, stepped up and got a big one for us. And then Ty followed it up. So initial reports on Ty are it’s not fractured. Obviously, it’s a contusion right there in the left wrist where he got smoked by the fastball from (Trevor) May and you know, he’s going to be sore. We’ll have to wait and see really, day to day. Probably wouldn’t expect him to be able to go tomorrow. Maybe the next day. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Off Seattle starter Marco Gonzales, the Oakland Athletics were able to get two-runs on the board (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Marco stumbles early but rebounds to have solid outing
Following a very rough eight runs allowed over two-innings outing, Seattle starting pitcher Marco Gonzales was able to navigate past a slow start to the game and deliver a quality start for the Mariners. Even though Gonzales allowed two-runs in the first inning, they were earned runs from the Athletics who were able to get hits on balls on the low and away corner of the plate that were well located. Oakland racked up three singles in the first inning, pushing two-runs across the plate. If you were going off Marco’s last appearance, you’d have been worried that things were going poorly once again and that the Mariners were going to be in a big hole early. Gonzales got back to his cadence and was able to mix in his fastball and cutter equally to get 12 swings and misses out of the Athletics and keep them scoreless after the first.
“I thought we had, you know, good game plan, just some weak contacts, some kind of fluky stuff happen in the first and after that settled in. I felt like we just attacked guys and had confidence my stuff and got ahead, then I thought we saw the results from that.”
“I just felt like in Boston, I didn’t give myself a chance to really execute. They just kind of jumped on me right away. So it didn’t really take away from how good I’ve been feeling and how my stuffs been playing so I just tried to reinstate confidence myself this past week and say hey, just flush that one just go right after him and you know, I’ve been feeling too good this year to not have that confidence to go you know, one start one kind of just honestly crappy start. Just needed to flush it and move forward. So hopefully this is a good step in the right direction.”
“I think Marco settled in. His cutter is effective, his changeup down below keeps you off balance. He rode the four-seam route. He made an adjustment after that first inning and we weren’t able to make the adjustment back. He’s a veteran pitcher and he’s out there for a reason.”
The Seattle Mariners bats were somewhat quiet early on, until the fifth inning… (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Infielders introduce some offense
While Seattle largely struggled in this game to get much going at the plate, a big fifth inning in what seems to be a trend with this Mariners teams powered them to victory. It feels as though Seattle is playing “burst ball,” where their offense will have a burst of production for one inning and then go relatively quiet for the rest of the game. While this is obviously not something that’s sustainable in the long-term and must be fixed going forward, it got the victory for the Mariners tonight and at the moment, that’s all that matters. Seattle was able to get one of the one-run wins that fans have come to almost enjoy over the past two years, even though they’ve struggled to collect them this season.
“I’m putting my body in a good spot to where I could just fire and you know, work in this offseason but a lot of work in you know, down the drive line and it’s paying off right now for sure. I feel confident in the box. And I feel like you know, just I’m gonna square something up every time.”
The runs today came off the bats of shortstop JP Crawford and first baseman Ty France, on back-to-back home runs. That fifth inning seemed like it was going to be a wash for Seattle, who had recorded the first two outs of the inning behind Teoscar Hernandez’s fly out and Kolten Wong’s ground out. Catcher and nine-hole hitter Tom Murphy doubled to put a runner in scoring position for JP Crawford, who’s excelled in those situations. Crawford decimated a ball in the upper middle quadrant of the zone, sending it over the right field fence to tie the game up at two. Before everyone could get their bearings back following that JP slam, Ty France decided that he wanted in on the fun by sending a solo blast off the digital scoreboard in left field, taking out the block that had the “X” in Texas. France tagged an off-speed pitch in the lower middle quadrant of the zone, hitting it with the perfect wood on ball sound as if the ball had its own theme song as it left the playing field.
JP Crawford and Ty France celebrate their back-to-back home runs (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Closing it out
Following the fifth inning fire that Seattle produced, the Mariners offense wasn’t able to get much going to follow up and pour on. The sixth and seventh innings were crickets for Seattle at the plate, while the eighth yielded some promise but in a very chaotic and puzzling way. Ty France was hit by a pitch on the bottom of his left hand to begin the inning, inciting boos to rain down upon Oakland pitcher Trevor May, who clearly wasn’t trying to hit France. The madness continued, as centerfielder Julio Rodriguez hit a ball that ended up landing in foul territory after a fan attempted to catch it and it glanced off his glove. The Athletics complained about it being fan interference, which it was as it did glance off the fans glove, and T-Mobile Park showered the umpire crew led by Carlos Torres tonight with boos. Eugenio Suarez was hit with a pitch with two outs to put runners on the corners, but Cal Raleigh popped out to squash that hope.
“I tell him to get out of the way every time and he doesn’t listen to me ever but yeah, obviously not good but he he’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever played with. The X rays came back good so, he’s a dog he’s probably going to try to play it tomorrow. You can’t keep him off the field, so we’ll see what happens.”
Seattle’s bullpen was up to the task, as the trio of Trevor Gott, Justin Topa, and Paul Sewald locked things down with the one-run advantage. The two in their first year as Mariners, Gott and Topa, were strong as they have been all season as they made sure that the Athletics didn’t climb back into things. And then, to close things out and put the ribbon on top of the victory, Paul Sewald came in and did what he’s done in his now third year as a Mariners, slamming the door shut to collect the save.
Seattle Mariners first baseman Ty France was hit by a pitch in the eighth inning, and the T-Mobile Park fans responded with boos (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Quick notes
The Mariners improved to 24-24 with tonight’s 3-2 win.
Seattle was last .500 on the season 5 games ago on May 16, 2023.
The Mariners are 21-12 this season when hitting at least one home run.
It was Seattle’s 13th comeback win of the season and fifth 1-run win (5-12 in 1-run games).
With 26, the Mariners are now tied (with Toronto) for most quality starts in the MLB.
JP Crawford’s 2nd home run of the season tied the game in the 5th inning.
The homer scored Tom Murphy, who was on base after his 6th double of the season.
Ty France followed with a back-to-back homer to left field.
It was Seattle’s 3rd pair of back-to-back homers of the season, last done by J.P. Crawford and Julio Rodríguez in the 2nd inning on April 26.
It was France’s 3rd home run of the season.
He was hit by a pitch for the 8th time this season in the 8th inning.
Sam Haggerty pinch-ran for France, recorded his 4th stolen base and advanced to 3rd on an error.
Haggerty filled France’s place at first base for the final inning.
With tonight’s 6th inning single, Jarred Kelenic extended his streak of hitting safely to 6 consecutive games (May 17-c).
Through 6.0 innings, Marco Gonzales allowed 5 hits, 2 runs (2 earned runs), and 1 walk.
It was Gonzales' 73rd quality start in a Mariners uniform, moving him into 10th place on the franchise's all-time quality starts list.
He surpassed Jim Beattie (72 quality starts).
It was his 4th time pitching 6.0 innings this season.
He threw 88 pitches and 56 strikes to strike out 4.
Both starting pitchers ended the night with the same amount of pitches, strikes, and strikeouts.
He improved his career record against the A’s to 11-4.
The Mariners have allowed 1st inning runs in 6 of their 7 last games.
Paul Sewald is now 10-for-10 in save opportunities this season.
What’s next?
Following wins in the first two games of the series, Seattle will look to take the series if they can secure a win in game three of the series. It’ll be “Ty Dye” Ty France night, as fans at this ticket link can get a special ty dye shirt with their ticket to the game. This game, like the two before it, will have a first pitch time of 6:40PM PST for the matchup on Wednesday, May 24th. The Mariners will have young right hander Bryce Miller on the mound, as he looks to continue an impressive start to his career.
