A Mariners team that has spent much of the season walking a tightrope with a major-league-best 12 one-run wins rediscovered what it’s like to enjoy a night of pure unadulterated celebration with a 9-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels Saturday.
“Fun ballgame,’’ said manager Scott Servais of a victory that improved the Mariners to 33-27, a season-best six games over .500, and kept them four games in front of the AL West. “A lot of really good things out there.’’
So many that it was almost hard to count them all.
First off was the nine runs, tied for the third-most Seattle has scored all season and most since notching 10 on May 7 against Minnesota. That offense combined with Bryce Miller and three relievers tossing a shutout to give the Mariners their largest margin of victory all season.
The offensive outburst came a day after the team announced the dismissal of bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown.
It was a tough move for Servais, who considers Brown — a former teammate of his with the Cubs — a good friend.
But the results of the past two days indicated something has changed — 14 runs in consecutive wins over the Angels as well as recording seven walks along with nine hits against just six strikeouts on Saturday.
“I think we are just freeing things up,’’ Servais said. “I know that’s been a point of emphasis here over the last couple days — let’s free these players up. Let’s talk about and really focus on what they do well and play into their strengths. And some guys need to be more aggressive. Some guys need to be less aggressive. But whatever you do, and it’s allowed you to get to the big leagues and be successful at this level, let’s get back into doing that and less concerned maybe with what they are firing at us or how they are pitching us and things like that.’’
Certainly everybody felt a lot looser when shortstop J.P. Crawford broke the game open with a grand slam in the fourth inning to make the score 5-0.
Crawford came to the play with two outs following walks to Luke Raley and rookie Ryan Bliss that walked the bases full.
Crawford fell behind 1-2, then fouled off an 84.9-mile an hour slider to stay alive, then took a slider for a ball.
Angels struggling starting pitcher Reid Detmers, who was sent down after the game, then tried to sneak about as slow of a pitch as he has in his arsenal — a curveball timed at 76.3 miles an hour.
Crawford had watched a 76.4-mile an hour curve go by him for a strike in the third inning in an at-bat that ended in a fly out.
Crawford didn’t miss on the opportunity this time, clubbing it over the wall in right just minutes after the roof — which had begun to close in the top of the inning — had finally gotten all the way across.
“I was just trying to be quick to the ball and not do too much,’’ Crawford said. “He threw me one (a curve) the previous at-bat before and I got a feel for it then. But just reacted. Thankfully it went over. Thankfully the roof was closed.’’
The homer continued an amazing stretch for Crawford since 2023 with the bases loaded. Since the start of the 2023 season, Crawford is 13 for 20 with the bags full, with three doubles, a triple and three home runs, good for 34 runs batted in and a staggering 1.941 OPS.
“Great guy to have up there (with the bases loaded),’’ Servais said. “He finds a way. He usually swings at the right pitches. He doesn’t get himself out and that’s a big part of it. He keeps battling some stuff off and all the sudden the guy leaves a breaking ball up the middle and he puts a great swing on it.’’
Miller, who had allowed three hits and a walk in the first three innings, then settled down to retire the next 10 in a row. Miller, now 5-5, said he didn’t feel he had good command of his fastball in a second inning when he gave up a single and a walk and decided to throw mostly breaking balls in the third, which he said then led to him eventually locating his fastball.
“I guess it fell out of my pocket and I lost it,’’ he said. “But I found it between innings.’’
Seattle then tacked on four more in the sixth, including a solo homer by Raley, a two-run double from Cal Raleigh and a run-scoring single by Julio Rodriguez, to turn it into a full-scale rout.
Rodriguez went 3 for 4 with two RBI and is now 13 for 32 in the last eight games with 10 RBI.
All of that led to as celebratory a day as the Mariners have had all season at T-Mobile in front of 39,932 on Pride Day.
But having the most fun might have been rookie Ryan Bliss, a 24-year-old playing just his fourth major-league game.
The speedy 5-foot-6 second baseman walked on each of his first two plate appearances. In the third, he then stole second and third for the first two stolen bases of his career before scoring on a Rodriguez single to make it 1-0.
On the steal of second, Detmers threw to first and appeared to momentarily have Bliss picked off before Bliss beat the throw to second.
Bliss said he never worried. “I felt like I could get there with my speed,’’ he said with a smile.
In the fourth, he walked again and was on base to come home on Crawford’s slam.
He then helped key the four-run sixth with his first major-league hit, a single to center that followed Raley’s homer that made it 6-0. He then tagged up and got to second when Crawford followed with a fly out.
He slid head first into second and was momentarily shaken up when he collided with Angels second baseman Luis Rengifo.
But after being attended to, he stayed in the game.
“Nothing too bad,’’ he said of the injury. “A little stinger.’’
He’ll also always have a memento — the ball from his first major-league hit — of a fun Saturday at the park.
“Right now I’m going to hold on to it until the offseason,’’ he said. “Then I’ll probably put it up somewhere nice in front of everything in the house I have in the offseason.’’
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