With a 5-4 walk off win on the last game of the season, the Seattle Mariners won their 90th game of the season. It marks only the second time in franchise history that the M’s have strung together consecutive 90+ win season; the only other such stretch in franchise history was 2000-2003 (91, 116, 93, and 93 wins respectively).
Of note, is the fact that during those six seasons Seattle only qualified for the playoffs in three of them (2000, 2001, and 2022).
The game was won when Ty France hit a walk-off single down the first base line to score catcher Curt Casali.
This was a set up by a poor through from closer Gregory Soto that allowed JP Crawford to safely reach first and a walk to Jared Kelenic, who only swung at one pitch during the entire plate appearance. Casali was on base thanks to the ghost runner rule.
Julio Rodriguez got the scoring going with a lead off home run on an 0-1 count. It was a 417 foot bomb out to the bullpen at T-Mobile Park.
Mitch Haniger would add his own dinger in the bottom of the first to make it 2-0.
Starting pitcher Marco Gonzales would make it to the fourth inning before he gave up any runs. In the top of the fourth Detroit would plate two when Abraham Toro would make a throwing error. Gonzales was able to shake that off as he would roll through seven innings to make sure the bullpen was plenty rested headed into the Wildcard series in Toronto on Friday.
The “Bulldog” would only be responsible for three of the four runs that scored while he was on the mound. He struck out five, walked two, and scattered eight hits over seven innings to go with those three earned runs (four total). Detroit’s last two runs of the season came when Javier Baez knocked in Jeimer Candelario in the fifth and Brendon Davis scored on a Riley Greene single.
Greene’s single had tied the game at four as the M’s had retaken the lead in sixth inning off of a two-run home run by starting second baseman Luis Torrens.
With the playoff seeding secure, third baseman Eugenio Suárez was given the day off to prepare for Toronto; which meant that Toro got the start at third. And since Dylan Moore was hit by a pitch and left the second game of yesterday day’s double header, that meant that Torrens got the start at second…the day after he’d recorded the first position player win in franchise history during game one, only to catch the second game of said double header.
This caps one of the more remarkable regular seasons in franchise history, and a fantastic way to break the playoff drought.
Beat the Blue Jays, go M’s.
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