Emerson Hancock made a strong start, and then a bunch of other stuff happened
By rights, this recap should be about Emerson Hancock, making a triumphant return to the mound and spinning five solid innings after being blown off the field in his season debut. It cannot be about that alone, because the Mariners refuse to be a normal baseball team, taking the most circuitous route possible to winning their first road series. I have prepared a helpful chart for you to understand today’s game:
This game did start off normally. Emerson Hancock gave up a two-run dinger in his first inning of work, as Austin Hays jumped on a sinker Hancock left on the plate, scoring Elly De La Cruz, who had legged out an infield single. But after that hiccup, Hancock settled down. He worked clean innings in the second and third, with four strikeouts, showing more swing-and-miss than he has before. A tricky fourth inning where De La Cruz led off again with a single was managed thanks to a double play, which wiped out a runner who would have scored on a subsequent Gavin Lux single. With that runner on, Hancock capped the traffic there, getting Jeimer Candelario swinging after a sinker for his second strikeout of Candelario on the day, something Hancock was pretty pumped up about:
Hancock got an assist to post another scoreless inning in his fifth and final inning of work, as Cal Raleigh picked just the right time to come up with his first caught stealing of the season, nailing former Mariner Jake Fraley trying to take an extra base. Cal’s caught stealing numbers don’t look great so far this season because he’s had the misfortune of working with some pitchers who aren’t controlling the run game overly well; Hancock did a notably better job of that today, checking on runners and being exceptionally quick to the plate. He also didn’t walk anyone, which is a key for Hancock going forward. Overall, just a very encouraging outing for Hancock, who, it could be argued, outdueled Singer today.
Meanwhile, the Mariners bats put their starter in a position to possibly take a win, working against new Reds trade acquisition Brady Singer. In the third, Luke Raley tied things up by punishing a mistake, a slider left on the plate that Raley pummeled almost four hundred feet, scoring Randy Arozarena, who had walked, the first of the four times he would be on base today:
The Mariners put Hancock in a position to possibly get a win in the fifth, again taking advantage of some miscues by the Reds: Jorge Polanco singled, advancing Julio Rodríguez, who had also singled, to third (and Polanco to second when Fraley overthrew the ball from the outfield), and then Raleigh reached when De La Cruz mishandled a surefire double play ball, scoring Julio. A sacrifice fly from Donovan Solano, scoring Polanco from third, doubled the lead to 4-2.
Thus concludes the normal part of the ballgame, although the Reds defense got a head start on the deeply silly back half. The Mariners bullpen has been solid so far this season, with a few hiccups, and today was a particularly violent, Wonka-factory one. Gabe Speier, on to face the top of the lineup in the sixth, didn’t have his command, giving up a leadoff single and a walk, needing to be bailed out by Collin Snider, who got his two ground balls to end the inning without damage. However, that sapped one arm from the Mariners’ pen, something that would loom large as the game wound on.
Carlos Vargas has been one of the steadier arms out of the bullpen so far this season, but today he showed his wild days might not be that far behind him. After getting a quick first out in the seventh, Vargas lost his command entirely, walking the first hitter he saw on five pitches, giving up a first-pitch double to Jake Fraley, who ambushed the first pitch he saw in the zone, and then walking pinch-hitter Matt McLain on four pitches, loading the bases. A sacrifice fly brought home a run to make it 4-3, and then Vargas walked Santiago Espinal on four pitches, leaving Trent Thornton in the difficult position of having to come into a bases-loaded situation. Thornton, who has had a notable homer problem, pitching to Elly De La Cruz with the bases loaded in Great American Smallpark?
But again, that high-leverage work took Thornton out of the mix, as manager Dan Wilson opted to give Eduard Bazardo a clean inning in the eighth, after the Mariners scraped another run of breathing room in the top of the inning, with the bottom of the lineup productive again: Ben Williamson led off with a single, moving to second on a nine-pitch Miles Mastrobuoni walk, and then J.P. Crawford doubled to bring Williamson home. With just one out, Kristopher Negrón opted to hold Mastrobuoni at third, but the Mariners weren’t able to push that run across.
Things fell apart in the bottom of the inning. Like a mirror image of Vargas’s inning, Bazardo got the first out, then gave up a bad-luck hit to Gavin Lux, which seemed to shake him, as he then walked the bases loaded. This time, there was no Trent Thornton waiting in the bullpen to save him, and Bazardo made a disastrously bad pitch right into Fraley’s lefty loop zone for a go-ahead grand slam.
Dan Wilson uses some variation of the phrase “these guys are fighters” in nearly every postgame presser (feel free to play along at home), and today he was able to fire out those chestnuts like t-shirts at a minor league baseball game. And credit to Dan the Man: there are Mariners teams of the past (of the past like, two weeks, even) where a 7-5 deficit in the ninth inning would feel impossibly insurmountable. But that was before the new Cal Raleigh action figure with bonus Torpedo Bat dropped:
Is former Mariner Emilio Pagán homer-prone? Yes. Do I think the torpedo bat is like Dumbo’s feather? Yes. Do I care? No.
Then it was time for some Randy Magic:
Former Red Casey Legumina worked a scoreless ninth, working against the top of the lineup to push the game to extras. That’s where the old Chaos Ball magic really reared its head. The Mariners took advantage of the Reds making mistakes all series, and none were more key than in this inning: Mastrobuoni reached on a sac bunt thanks to a throwing error by new pitcher Graham Ashcraft, and then Crawford pushed across another run and reached safely as Elly De La Cruz briefly forgot what a baseball was. Mitch Garver walked to re-load the bases, and then it was Randy, again, unloading them:
Is there anyone you want up other than Randy right now in a must-do situation? It’s giving prime Nelson Cruz vibes, where you just know it’s going to be a good at-bat.
The Mariners added on one more in an “in play, run(s) (embarrassing)” fashion, when De La Cruz made another error on what should have been an inning-ending groundout, bobbling a ball and allowing both Garver to score and the 37-year-old Donovan Solano to beat out an infield base hit. Ooof. That gave Andrés Muñoz, still lurking in Wilson’s bullpen, a very comfortable cushion—not that he needed it, putting down his three hitters in order and not even allowing the ghost runner to score.
“You don’t see too many games like that,” said Dan Wilson, Underseller of the Millennium.
But it feels like the Mariners have already played a few Games Like That, and the season is still not on solid foods quite yet. Next up: Toronto, where John Schneider will hope his pitchers can execute their pitches against Cal Raleigh and his torpedo bat.
