Four minutes later and 2,000 miles away, Randy Arozarena completed one of the biggest swings of the season in the American League West.
Arozarena belted a mammoth three-run home run to give the Mariners the lead in the third inning Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park, just minutes after the Houston Astros blew a two-run, ninth-inning lead in Toronto in a walkoff loss to the Blue Jays.
Josh Naylor followed an inning later with a go-ahead home run way out to right field, and the Mariners held on for an emotionally charged 5-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals to pull within one game of the Astros in the AL West with 17 games remaining in the regular season.
The Mariners’ September surge has begun. Can they ride it into October?
“Big-time games right now,” said Naylor, who punctuated his 415-foot home run by chucking his bat all the way to the Mariners’ dugout in his most emphatic display of emotion since arriving in Seattle at the trade deadline. “We're in a really awesome push for the playoffs, an awesome push for the division. And it's just — it’s time to go.”
Further distancing themselves from a dreadful East Coast road trip last week, the Mariners (77-68) won their fourth straight game to maintain their 1.5-game lead over the Texas Rangers for the third and final AL wild-card spot.
The wild card, though, is starting to feel more and more like a Plan B as the Mariners zero in on the Astros, who have lost seven of their last 10 games.
The Mariners travel to Houston for their final road series late next week.
Julio Rodriguez, manning center field not far from the out-of-town scoreboard, couldn’t help but take notice when the Astros’ 4-3 loss in Toronto went final during the third inning of the Mariners' game.
“The reality is, we need to win games,” said Rodriguez, whose spectacular running catch at the wall in right-center closed out the seventh inning and brought the crowd of 23,044 to its feet. “It feels really good, you know, that extra adrenaline and that extra little pressure. I feel, like, it's good — it's really good.”
On Monday night, Naylor drove in the go-ahead runs with a bases-loaded double in the sixth inning in the Mariners’ 4-2 come-from-behind victory.
He delivered again Tuesday night, after the Cardinals had tied it up at 3-3 off George Kirby in the top of the fourth inning. Naylor’s solo blast off St. Louis left-hander Matthew Liberatore in the bottom of the fourth gave the Mariners a 4-3 lead.
It was Naylor’s 19th homer of the season, eighth since being traded to Seattle and third in his past four games.
“This is what is so great about baseball this time of year, and it brings out the best in us,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “It was a big moment, got us right back to the lead, which is what we wanted. And it was a big moment (Monday) night. He's just been swinging the bat, and to see that (emotion) from him was, you know, it got all of us going.”
With the Mariners trailing 2-0, Arozarena mashed his 27th home run 405 feet out to left field, off the facade of the upper deck, to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead in the third.
Arozarena homered off Liberatore, the player for whom Arozarena was traded from St. Louis to Tampa Bay in January 2020.
Arozarena stood and admired the blast, before motioning to teammates in the home dugout.
Naylor was just as amped for his moment an inning later.
“The energy is for sure contagious. It's infectious,” Naylor said. “You just feed off one another. It's super cool to be in those situations and come through for your team, and then get excited and feel the rest of the boys get excited. And then someone else does something cool, and then they get excited, and then it's just a super cool camaraderie.”
After another sluggish start from Kirby, M’s relievers Caleb Ferguson, Eduard Bazardo, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Andrés Muñoz were nearly flawless over the final five innings, helping the Mariners improve to 18-6 at home since the All-Star break.
The relievers combined for seven strikeouts, no walks and just two hits allowed. Muñoz picked up his 34th save of the season.
Kirby was coming off the worst start of his career on the road against the Tampa Bay Rays last week, when he surrendered eight runs (seven earned) in just two innings.
He wasn’t sharp Tuesday, either.
The Cardinals had three straight hits off Kirby in the second inning to take a 2-0 lead, with a double from Nolan Gorman getting just past the diving effort from Arozarena near the left-field line.
Kirby stranded the bases loaded in the fourth inning when he got Ivan Herrera to ground out to end the threat.
That ended Kirby’s night. He needed 85 pitches to get through those four innings, and he allowed seven hits while inducing just three swings-and-misses.
Following Naylor’s homer, Arozarena added a sacrifice fly to deep right field, scoring Mitch Garver to extend the Mariners’ lead to 5-3 later in the fourth.
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