CINCINNATI – This one was satisfying for the Seattle Mariners, especially so for manager Dan Wilson.
It wasn’t just that the Mariners mounted a late rally to beat the Cincinnati Reds 11-7 on Thursday in 10 innings, after back-to-back home runs from Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena tied it in the top of the ninth.
For Wilson, it was as much about the manner in which the Mariners did it because it strikes to the heart of his beliefs of team-building.
“You don’t see too many games like that …” Wilson said, standing in a tunnel outside the visitors clubhouse at Great American Ball Park. “That’s a special group in there, no question about it.”
The Mariners (10-9) won their first road series of the season with their sixth victory in their past seven games, a stretch that began with an improbable comeback victory at home last week over the rival Houston Astros.
The late rally Thursday afternoon was just as unlikely after ex-Mariner Jake Fraley delivered what looked like a knockout blow with a go-ahead grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Those, Wilson said, are two defining wins for a team with lofty aspirations this season.
“There are pivotal points of the season, and I think early on that (comeback vs. the Astros) was a pivotal point for us. And this game is going to be a pivotal point,” Wilson said.
“These guys, they fight and they fight hard and they fight till the end. And it’s just, it’s really feels good to bask in that effort today.”
Raleigh has hit six home runs in six games, giving him eight home runs (one shy of the MLB lead) in the Mariners’ first 19 games. Five of those homers have come with his new torpedo bat.
After Raleigh homered in the ninth, Arozarena tied the score at 7 when he turned on an inside cutter from Reds reliever Emilio Pagan – the one-time Mariner – and sent it on a line at 108.2 mph out to left field for his fourth homer of the season.
In the 10th, J.P. Crawford, on a 0-2 pitch, drove in automatic runner Dylan Moore from third base to give the Mariners the lead.
Arozarena then doubled on a two-out, 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded to drive in two more runs in the 10th. An Elly De La Cruz error added one more run for the Mariners.
The Mariners led 5-3 going into bottom of the eighth. Fraley belted his grand slam off M’s reliever Eduard Bazardo to give the Reds a 7-5 lead going into the ninth.
Bazardo, pitching with the lead in the eighth inning for the first time, struggled to command his fastball. He walked two batters and allowed three hits. He got ahead of Fraley 0-1 with a slider but then left a fastball over the heart of the plate – and Fraley hit a 107.1-mph blast out to right field.
With the Mariners clinging to a 4-3 lead in the seventh, Wilson had turned to Trent Thornton with the bases loaded and two outs.
Thornton struck out De La Cruz looking at a fastball down the middle for the final out, stranding all three runners.
Thornton had also struck out De La Cruz late in the Mariners’ victory Wednesday night.
Instead of going back to Thornton in the eighth Thursday, however, Wilson opted to turn to Bazardo.
After a shaky first inning, Emerson Hancock retired 10 of the last 11 batters he faced, getting through the Reds lineup twice through five innings in his second start of the season.
He allowed a two-run home run to Austin Hays in the first inning, but nothing after that in what might have been the most important start of his young career.
The 25-year-old Hancock scattered five hits, struck out four and walked none.
Luke Raley’s two-run homer in the fourth for the Mariners tied the score at 2.