Rays 7, Mariners 6
Record: 74-54
Attendance: 7,827. Tropicana Field
The Seattle Mariners, who got off to a great start this season but then went into a three-month slump, have shown sparks of life lately. The were 6-3 in their last nine and on Wednesday afternoon after scoring three clutch runs in the top of the ninth, they had a 7-3 record in sight for their last ten games. The sparse crowd of 7,827 at Tropicana Field began to thin out.
Suddenly on the losing side of a 6-5 decision, Kevin Kiermaier led off the bottom of the ninth and fell behind, 0-2. Then he took three balls and fouled a couple off, and on a full count, he launched a 437-foot home run to dead center to tie the game. The stadium was just like that re-energized. Willy Adames singled to left, Michael Brosseau doubled to left, Ji-Man Choi was given an intentional pass, and on a 1-2 count on Tommy Pham, Mariner reliever Matt Magill threw a fifty-five-foot curve ball into the dirt. It bounced off catcher Omar Narvaez and sped off toward the Mariner dugout while Adames scored the winning run.
The Mariners hope for a 7-3 record over the last ten games, capped by a three-game sweep of the Rays, all went up in smoke as the Rays took their second walk-off win on a wild pitch this month. The Rays showed once again that though they have plenty of problems, they are not to be taken lightly. They fight for every one of their 27 outs.
In Wednesday's game, they were ahead 2-0 after three, then down 3-2, then up 4-3 and 5-3, then down 6-5, and finally up 7-6. In the end it was the last team to hit that won the game. The Rays collected 11 hits in all, homers from Guillermo Heredia and Kiermaier, a 3 for 3 night for Travis d'Arnaud (who seems recovered from his mini-slump), and a four RBI splurge from Kiermaier, the hero of the game.
Charlie Morton started the game and got through five innings giving up three runs on four hits and two walks through 99 pitches. With so many lead changes, it's hardly surprising that he didn't figure in the decision. He was followed by Colin Poche for two good innings with three strikeouts. In the eighth Nick Anderson came in and it seemed the Rays had something going: Anderson in the eighth and Emilio Pagan in the ninth, the new power pair of closers But Anderson, who has 18 strikeouts in nine innings, allowed a bloop single that Kiermaier couldn't hold on to, which seemed to rattle Anderson a little as for the first time this year, he got no strikeouts.
But the game still seemed to be safely in the win column when Pagan came in with a two-run lead and a recent run of solid saves. His first hitter was Mariner slugger Daniel Vogelbach, who promptly put a ball in the right field stands, his 28th. Then, with two on, Pagan gave Mallex Smith a pitch he could turn on, which turned into a triple that scored two runs and took the lead. Pagan blew the save, and was in line to take the loss, when the Rays went on their own late rampage, which turned Pagan into the winning pitcher.
All in all, it was a great day at the ball park. The Rays continue to hang tough even though they show the weaknesses in their roster all too often. They're good, but how good remains the question, the same question we've been asking from the beginning of the season. They will continue to be the long shot of the 2019 post-season, if they manage to make it.
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