Crawford in the clutch: Mariners walk off Astros in extras on sacrifice fly from Seattle shortstop
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Chaos ball reigned supreme last night as the Seattle Mariners guaranteed at minimum a series split against the Houston Astros in this four-game series between two bitter AL West rivals, and tonight more of that chaos came into play in the form of a walk off. As he has so often for the Mariners, shortstop J.P. Crawford delivered in a big way as his sacrifice fly with the bases loaded in the bottom of the tenth inning scored Jonatan Clase to plate their second run and secured the series victory. It wasn’t a pretty result for Seattle, as so many of them haven’t been with the same issue of a lack of run support coming into play when the Mariners starting pitcher delivers a strong performance, but this can be viewed as an example of the team finding a way to win games that they wouldn’t have last season when they fell a game short of the postseason. The Mariners’ ability to win these games and stay at the top of the division isn’t particularly ideal, but it does provide excitement for when they begin to click at the plate and compliment the excellent, often historic, pitching that they’ve gotten.
U.S. Surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy threw out the ceremonial first pitch ahead of the Seattle Mariners win over the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park on Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 with other pregame sights. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
Pitchers duel dominates the story...
With the starting pitching duel of Justin Verlander against George Kirby headlining things coming into this contest, we always seemed to be destined for a duel on the mound unless either of the team's lineup found a way to get a jump early. Both lineups largely scuttled along through the first few early innings, with the occasional single base runner coming along but no real damage making its way onto the scoreboard until the fourth inning. Three singles from Houston, with only one of them being hit hard, saw Jake Meyers drive in Yordan Alvarez from third base on a blooper to center to get the first run on the board, but nothing else off that against George Kirby. Seattle answered the next inning, as right fielder Dominic Canzone pounded a fastball at the top of the zone to right-center field off Verlander for a solo shot to tie the game up in the fifth inning. In the sixth inning it looked as though the Astros were going to be able to answer back and get their lead back from the Mariners as they had singles from Yordan Alvarez and Jeremy Peña put runners on the corners against Kirby, but Seattle’s right hander got Alex Bregman to fan on a splitter in the dirt for a strikeout and Jake Meyers to roll over on a sinker high and inside to close out the inning and negate any danger.
Seattle Mariners outfielder Dominic Canzone hit a solo homer in this game to tie things up and keep them in the game against the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park on Wednesday, May 29th, 2024. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
“I think just establishing the breaking balls early and slowing them down a little bit, everybody knows he’s got a good fastball. He also pitched in very effectively, in my opinion, against the righties: just don’t let them get up there and get comfortable. And again, credit to Garv for understanding that. ”
“Always want to come out strong like that. Finally saw some good results on the splitter tonight, and I was just like, Screw it. I’m gonna throw it as hard as I can, see what happens and finally started moving a little bit. They’re aggressive, so you just gotta make them feel uncomfortable and used a lot of different off-speed tonight. Thought that worked really well.”
The pitching in the May 29th, 2024 Seattle Mariners win over the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park was strong throughout the contest, beginning with starting pitchers Justin Verlander and George Kirby. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
Until the bottom of the ninth inning, the Astros and Mariners were back to trading largely meaningless innings as they couldn’t get offense figured out against each other's bullpens. Houston brought Josh Hader in for that bottom of the ninth to try and keep the game tied at one, and it appeared that Seattle was going to get the best of him as superstar center fielder Julio Rodríguez singled, stole second, and then advanced to third with one out to put the Mariners in prime position for a walk off in the bottom of the ninth. A Ty France walk only added to that, giving Seattle runners on the corners before things got a bit hectic and questionable. Ryan Bliss was put in as a pinch hitter for Josh Rojas, and even though he had a strong plate appearance, the rookie infielder struck out as did Mitch Haniger to send this game into extra innings in frustrating fashion.
The Seattle Mariners had a golden opportunity in the bottom of the ninth inning to be able to walk things off, with a runner on third base with just one out, but the Houston Astros were able to get out of the jam to force extra innings on May 29th, 2024 at T-Mobile Park. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
Until heroics in dramatic moments save Seattle
With the ghost runner on for Houston and reliever Mike Baumann making his second appearance for the Mariners, after a struggle of an outing in New York against the Yankees for his Seattle debut, there was some worry about whether there was going to be a happy ending for the home crowd in attendance at T-Mobile Park. Thankfully for that home crowd, the newest Mariners reliever worked an efficient inning as he got Chas McCormick and Victor Caratini to fly out before José Altuve grounded out and turned things over to the Mariners lineup to attempt the walk off once again. Bring on more of the chaos and stress, maybe more of the latter, as Jonatan Clase was put on second as the pinch runner to begin the bottom side of the tenth inning. Dom Canzone had his third high impact play of the game, following his solo homer and a diving catch in right field earlier in the game, as he grounded out but moved Clase over to third base in the process. Walks from Cal Raleigh and Luke Raley against Houston reliever Tayler Scott loaded the bases with just one out, bringing arguably the most clutch Seattle player to the plate in J.P. Crawford. The Mariners didn’t need a ball over the fence, they didn’t even need a base hit to get this thing over with: all it would take is a ball deep enough on a sacrifice fly, and that’s exactly what Crawford was able to do. J.P. understanding the moment and knowing that he could get this game over with in multiple ways helped his mindset in that big plate appearance, and he took a changeup at the bottom of the zone deep to right field to score Clase easily as Kyle Tucker couldn’t get any competitive throw to home plate.
“Get the game over with, get the job done, and let’s go home. Honestly, get a good pitch and don’t miss it. And, thankfully I didn’t miss it. ”
“He has been in a situation before, no question, and it doesn’t always go your way. We did exactly what we needed to do, get into a good count and put a good swing on it. Didn’t try to do too much and got the job done. That’s all we were looking for tonight. ”
The celebration on the field following J.P. Crawford’s sacrifice fly to score Jonatan Clase from third, giving the Seattle Mariners the win and series victory over the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park, May 29th, 2024. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
Finding a way to win isn’t a bad thing, necessarily
Of course, as we’ve talked about throughout the course of this season (and dating back as well through the past two years, truthfully), the struggle to not generate hardly any run support for Seattle starting pitchers is the biggest area of frustration with this Mariners franchise in recent memory and it really isn’t even close. Getting routinely excellent and historic performances from this Seattle rotation on an extremely consistent basis is amazing but it can’t be taken for granted, and you’ve heard that time and time again, it’s not something new. I understand that this lineup isn’t clicking yet offensively, and when hardly any of the hitters are doing much at the plate it’s hard to imagine that a big trade to acquire just one bat would make much impact if only that batter is doing good things in the batters box on a regular basis. But, since it isn’t June yet and there have been positive stretches of hitting from different members of this Seattle lineup (Recently, see: Dylan Moore, Luke Raley), I won’t freak out just yet and my main takeaway from this game is somewhat positive.
“You got to find a way to win, and we are doing that right now. Credit to our guys for grinding through it. ”
For large parts of 2021 and most of 2022 (including that remarkable Wild Card series against the Blue Jays in Toronto), the Seattle Mariners had a bit of magic that seemingly every playoff team needs to be able to get there and do damage in the postseason. Call it habit building, call it luck, be frustrated that it isn’t a more convincing way of doing things, whatever you want to do: there is that sort of unexplainable ability to pull out improbable results that comes with teams that do make runs to the playoffs in October, and the Mariners didn’t have that last season. Seattle lost games that were tight and couldn’t get that spurt of luck that they needed as a team to turn things around and help them keep a lead at the top of the AL West down the stretch. They weren’t the one-run wonders they’d been the two seasons before and couldn’t get their difference makers to do just that in the last weeks of the season. We’re obviously quite far away from that point of the year right now, but it’s important to note that they have been winning series very consistently over the past month or two and have gotten these comeback, dramatic wins as well over the last two weeks and have a few of them earlier in the campaign too. I find that important now, here in late May, because they will need to have that later in the year when they’ve done a lot good, but their opponent is also a good ball club, and the Mariners need some way to pull out the win. It’s still not time to form complete opinions or say what the true identity of this team is, but we’re seeing the no-quit/never say die belief that this Seattle group will need in order to return to the playoffs.
Sights and scenes from Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 as it was a “Bark at the Park” night at T-Mobile Park as the Seattle Mariners defeated the Houston Astros by a score of 2-1. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
Quick Mariners notes
25,437 was the announced paid attendance at T-Mobile Park for tonight’s game three between the Houston Astros and our Seattle Mariners
That’s 53% of full capacity at T-Mobile Park (47,943)
It’s unclear how many dogs were in attendance, as tonight was a “Bark at the Park” night.
“King” the Salmon tonight’s winner of the Mariners “Salmon Run.”
2024 Leaderboard, so far
King: 10 wins
Silver: 9 wins
Sockeye: 8 wins
Humpy: winless
The Red Oberto boat was tonight’s winner of the Mariners “Hydro Challenge.”
2024 Leaderboard, so far
Red Oberto Boat: 10 wins
Green Muckleshoot Casino Boat: 9 wins
Yellow Mariners Team Store Boat: 9 wins
The Mariners defeated the Astros by a 2-1 score tonight…improve to 5-1 against the Astros this season.
The Mariners have won 4 consecutive games (5/26-c), going back to their series finale at Washington.
The Mariners are now 3-1 in extra innings.
1st place Seattle maintains its 3.5-game lead over 2nd place TEX, upping its lead over 3rd place HOU to 6.5 games.
Seattle is 14-5 (.737) against Houston since the start of 2023.
The Mariners have a 9-3-1 series record over their last 13 series and a 6-0 series record over their last 6 home series.
Since April 15, the Mariners are now 14-4 (.778) at T-Mobile Park this season, 2nd best in the AL and 3rd best in the Majors…they trail the Cleveland Guardians with a 15-3 record at home during that span.
Seattle’s 11th comeback win of the season.
JP Crawford registered his 5th career walk-off tonight (bases loaded sac fly)…his first walk-off since Sept. 28, 2023 vs. Texas.
Dominic Canzone went 1-for-2 while hitting a first pitch homer in the 5th inning…his 5th home run of the season.
Julio Rodríguez went 1-for-4 tonight.
He recorded his 14th stolen base of the season in the 9th inning.
Seattle’s pitching staff combined for no walks and 14 strikeouts on the night.
Starter George Kirby went 6.0 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits with 0 walks and 8 strikeouts.
Recorded his 6th quality start tonight.
Has 21 quality starts with 0 walks in his career, most in MLB since he made his debut and 8 more than next-closest Zach Eflin-TB (13) & Zac Gallen-ARI (13) in that span.
His 8 strikeouts tonight rank as the T-2nd most this season.
Mariners starters have held opponents to a .088 (3x34) AVG with 2 walks during the first time through the lineup over their last 4 G (5/26-c).
The Mariners have 34 quality starts this season, most in the Majors and ranking ahead of the Phillies (32 QS).
The Mariners bullpen (Trent Thornton, Gabe Speier, Austin Voth, Andrés Muñoz and Mike Baumann) combined for 4.0 scoreless innings with 1 hit, 0 walks and 6 strikeouts.
In 11 May appearances Andrés Muñoz is 1-0 with 6 saves and a 1.13 ERA (1 ER, 12.1 IP) with 1 walk and 17 strikeouts.s
Baumann recorded his first career win in a Mariners uniform.
What’s next?
Following tonight’s walk off win over the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park, the Seattle Mariners will close out a four-game series against their bitter American League West rivals with an opportunity to break the brooms out tomorrow afternoon. The Astros and Mariners close out their second series against each other of this season when they meet, tomorrow, Thursday, May 30th with a first pitch time of 1:10PM PDT as Houston will have 24-year-old right hander Spencer Arrighetti on the mound to duel with Seattle right-hander Logan Gilbert as the latter looks to repeat a strong performance from his last time out when he threw six innings of one-run ball against the Washington Nationals on the M’s brutal 10-game road trip. This will be a Mariners value game, where fans can get in for as low as $10 if they want to attend in person, and it will be the last game that will be broadcast on Root Sports Northwest within their market (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska) and on the radio at 710 AM until Sunday as Friday’s contest will be on Apple TV and Saturday’s will be on FOX.
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Cover photo by Circling Seattle Sports photographer Rio Giancarlo.
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