Dr. Hibbert asks the Astros to view their reflection, the reflection is the Seattle Mariners, M’s win 7-6

A stunning, stunning comeback victory for a series win.

The 20,556 afternoon escapees from 9-5 obligations had to expect something external to the ordinary as they entered the gates of T-Mobile Park. A getaway game for the Houston Astros, on the heels of two tightly contested matchups that stretched deep into extra innings, in particular for the zombie runner era. Luis F. Castillo, once more succeeding his tocayo as was noted on the broadcast, was set for another start, while the shambolic Seattle Mariners were mustering a lineup with enough question marks to fit in a Batman Forever scene.

For 7+ frames it felt indistinguishable from, well, most of the games these Mariners have played this year. A brand of baseball that’s the enemy of RBI-enthusiasts and the friend of Rogaine salespeople. This hair-yankingly poor hitting was served alongside an unappetizing souffle of free passes and dubious defense. Castillo struggled to locate, a sin he could ill-afford with fastballs dipping into the 87-89 mph range at times. Though he nearly escaped with minimized damage with a double play ball he botched, by the time he returned to the dugout for good, he’d danced around five free passes, six hits, and an error over 100 pitches in just four frames, and the M’s were in a 4-0 hole.

On the other side, in a fascinating but macabre display, Seattle managed to strike out just thrice against Hunter Brown and his upper-90s heat, swinging with feverish aggression that yielded impotent contact all day long, albeit aided by strong glovework across the Houston infield. Most strikingly, the M’s fouled off 32 pitches from Brown, a titanic total that explains how they could run (okay, stroll at a mild pace) Brown after just the sixth inning on a day he issued not a single free pass.

Finally, with Brown gone, the M’s found traction, and with traction, traffic. But the team entering today 11-91 w/RISP wouldn’t gloriously rectify those totals. A Randy Arozarena walk (not the most important one of the day, mind you) came before a free pass to Luke Raley, whose bespectacled approach is aiding him in picking out off-speed. Here, however, the larder began to be raided, as Dan Wilson went to the bench twice, first for Donovan Solano and then Dominic Canzone in place of Rowdy Tellez and, more surprisingly, Dylan Moore. A pair of punchouts, and Seattle’s short-handed reinforcements were half-spent.

As this morning’s call-up Casey Lawrence yielded another run to stretch it 5-0, it felt poetic to have seen bloopers drop between Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford, would-be double play balls clang off gloves formerly gilded, and idly speculate on if it’d be more dangerous to have Miles Mastrobuoni pitch and Mitch Garver play the field if the lead grew much further, or Garver pitch and leave the rest of the defense in some semblance of familiarity.

Mastrobuoni had no designs on climbing the hill, however. His cracked single started the 8th inning off with a baserunner, Seattle’s first leadoff baserunner of the game. At last, the pendulum of overwhelming bullpen use swung back in Seattle’s favor as the Astros sought to stretch recent call-up Luis Contreras through a second inning of work, wherein both Crawford and Julio spat on unconvincing offerings until the bases were loaded. Initially, I feared the shaggy-haired lefty in the pen was another round of Josh Hader, who’d worked multiple innings on Sunday and Tuesday, but it was merely veteran Steven Okert, a still formidable opponent in the words of Rick Rizzs.

Here the bench’s limitations were again exposed. With Leo Rivas already in to replace Canzone in Moore’s spot, Mitch Garver had to hit for the hobbled Jorge Polanco, as the switch-hitter is not yet able to swing comfortably from the right side. Both he and Cal Raleigh went down sans ceremony. The nadir, though we didn’t know it yet. But in stepped the player Julio Rodríguez deemed postgame “a baseball genius,” who Dan Wilson credited with exceptional patience, and who has starred for crowds a quarter of the size of even the thinned out afternoon collective.

Postgame, Arozarena would credit both the cage work he’d been doing prior to the game and identifying that he’d failed to barrel up a few fastballs recently. As such, in this moment, following slider-heavy servings to both Garver and Raleigh, he was ready to deliver at home, driving them all home, in his home.

Through translation, from Arozarena:

“I do feel at home now, truly. Before I came here from Tampa, I already knew about the fans here, you always watch them packing out the stadium and large crowds here. So when I got here, I was excited to play with them. And even now, win or lose, they’re always out there supporting me. I really like to reciprocate the love that the fans show me out in left field, whenever they’re cheering for me and yelling for me it gets me very excited, and I feel proud and happy to play for them, and I like to reciprocate or interact with them because of that.”

There are only so many players whose power cuts through the springtime in Seattle, but the energy of his salami shot through the entire stadium and invigorated an at-times dejected-looking dugout. Even in tightening the total, however, a 5-4 deficit remained, stretched to 6-4 as Wilson stuck with Lawrence through the top of the 9th with Andrés Muñoz unavailable and essentially the entire bullpen having labored heavily over the past several games.

For as much as the Mariners have been snakebitten this season, Houston has animus for similar gripes. Both teams entered this game behind where they expected to be on the season, and spent most of the game battling home plate umpire Carlos Torres’ wide, wider, and “why not?” strike zone. Yet even with this agent of mayhem in play, the specter of a lost series to one of the most important competitors this season drew long over SODO. A different specter all-too-similarly inflected by time’s advancement could not constrain Solano, however, as he led off with a two-strike single on a Bryan Abreu heater above the zone. Facing the same pitching plan the league has employed this season against them of simply pounding the zone and daring them to hit it, a Leo Rivas flyout was followed by another lashed single from the playing-time-deserving Mastrobuoni. The stars deserved the glory, but the ends of the bench and injury fillers came up huge in the game’s final moments, against a dynamite reliever.

That put J.P. Crawford in position to tie things up, particularly after Mastrobuoni swiped second, but a weak chopper to third seemed ineffective to do anything but set up a two-out stressor for Julio. Solano had, well, other ideas, but they appeared more accurately the absence of them. I’m not sure what you’re drawing up if this is even in the conversation, but it’s not how you are meant to do it.

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Despite a bout with imposter syndrome, the 37 year old deftly managed to return safely to third, sucking in as he tumbled akimbo, in what would be an overturned out call to instead load the bases for the top of the order. A week ago, it’d have been Victor Robles, but now it’s Julio, on the anniversary of his first career hit, a clutch RBI double in the 9th that led to a comeback M’s win over the Minnesota Twins.

“I remember that day, that was special for me, because it was a relief to be able to do it at this level, and it was awesome to be able to hit another double today, and we’ll continue to see if we can hit many more.”

The double today was a masterpiece. In an 0-2 hole to Abreu following 98 up and in on the black and a nasty slider Rodríguez skimmed off the edge of his barrel foul, it looked like another defeat was imminent. Against Abreu, we’ve seen Julio go 1-9 with just a single and a sacrifice fly in 10 plate appearances. This afternoon, once again, Abreu doesn’t miss.

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But neither does Julio.

We’ve heard time and time again of the ways in which Julio is seeking to embody more of Edgar Martinez’s ethos, but it doesn’t always shine through so evidently. Rodríguez claimed he was just attempting to hit the ball right back at the pitcher on a line here, and that seems about right when adjusted for location. Seattle went 2-10 w/RISP today, there was no extraordinary glut of hits. But those two hits carried six runs across. On a day Cal Raleigh probably would like to forget, after Mitch Garver loaded the bases with a dicey ball four call that fit the zone of the day but was nonetheless eyebrow-raising, the responsibility fell once again to Randy to rustle up a single sprinkle more of magic.

However much pixie dust fits in a bucket of Hubba Bubba, the left fielder who feels at home brought home a series victory for the M’s. 7-6 means 5-8, more vital in every way than just hours before.

Got em.