Mariners lose to Yankees after Julio Rodriguez’s base running blunder in extra innings
by Ryan Divish · The Seattle TimesHere’s the thing about scoreboard watching and hoping for other teams to suffer defeat to aid your postseason hopes, you still need win your own games for it to truly make a difference.
On a night where they could’ve gained ground in the American League West standings with the Astros losing and also pick up a game in the chase for the third wild card spot with the Twins getting beat, the Mariners, instead, found a way to lose a must-win game to the Yankees, 2-1, in a way that defied all basic baseball logic and reason.
With no outs in the bottom of the 10th inning and trailing by a run, Julio Rodriguez, the automatic runner to start the inning, stood on third base after advancing on Cal Raleigh’s single to left field.
The Mariners stood primed to at least tie the game and set themselves up for a must-needed victory, Wednesday night at T-Mobile Park.
Instead, it all fell apart in a bizarre sequence of events, stunning most of the 31,674 in attendance.
Facing right-hander Ian Hamilton, a former Washington State standout, Randy Arozarena swung wildly and violently at a 2-2 slider off the plate. In the process of missing the pitch by about a foot, he lost his handle on the bat.
It helicoptered down the third baseline at a high rate of speed where Rodriguez was taking his lead. Not wanting to get hit with the unexpected flying lumber, Rodriguez bolted out of the way well into foul territory.
“Honestly, I just saw a bat flying up to my face, and I just ran away from it,” Rodriguez said. “After that, I was just in a little bit of shock.”
There was a slight problem: the play was still live.
Seeing Rodriguez well away from the third base bag and with his back to him, catcher Austin Wells alertly fired to third baseman Jazz Chisholm. With third base coach Manny Acta yelling at him to get back to the base, Rodriguez finally realized what was happening. But it was far too late. He had no chance of getting back safely and was tagged out.
“After I saw the bat, I thought it was gonna be the dead play, and then they would pick up the bat, and then I was gonna go back to third,” Rodriguez said. “And then I heard Manny yelling, ‘get back to third.’ That’s when I got back to third. At that moment, I wasn’t really thinking about the game. I was just thinking about getting away from the bat coming at me. That was a first for me.”
It was a bizarre, momentum-sapping, soul-crushing double play that killed any victory hopes.
“Two plays at third on back-to-back nights that are pretty amazing,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Kind of gifts to go our way. That’s one I’ve never seen and I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.”
With two outs, Justin Turner, who watched the base-running calamity in the on-deck circle, popped out to end the game.
“This is a tougher one to lose,” manager Dan Wilson said quietly. “It looked like just kind of a reaction to kind of get out of the way. And, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before in a game. Just a strange situation.”
Strange might not be the first word of choice that most fans would use to describe it. Neither Wilson or Rodriguez labeled it a mistake.
The Mariners remain five games back of Houston in the AL West and three games back of the Twins in the wild-card race with 10 games left to play. Math says they are still alive for a postseason berth. Reality says they are without hope.
This one-run loss where the Mariners failed to do much of anything offensively will be added to the inordinate number of outcomes with that criteria.
But in Mariners’ lore, it will remain something more — a painful and mocking highlight, encapsulating all that went wrong in a season that fell apart in June and never righted itself.
Seattle got a solid start from Bryce Miller, who worked six innings, allowing one run on just two hits with four walks and eight strikeouts. It was his 17th quality start of six-plus innings pitched and three runs or fewer allowed.
The one run that Miller allowed came in the second inning. The problems started when he issued a one-out walk to rookie Jasson Dominguez. With Anthony Rizzo at the plate, Dominguez got a huge jump on a stolen base attempt of second. Raleigh still tried to make a throw to get him, but it went wayward and into center field, allowing Dominguez to race to third.
Rizzo then laced a single on a 2-0 fastball into right field to drive in the Yankees first run.
Miller would get Anthony Volpe to ground out into an inning-ending double play.
But his outing wouldn’t get any easier.
An inning later, he gave up a two-out double to Soto. The Mariners opted to intentionally walk Aaron Judge with first base open. But they weren’t planning for Miller to walk the next batter, Wells, to load the bases.
Miller came to back to strike out Chisholm swinging to end the inning.
Sponsored
It was the start of a run of 10 consecutive hitters retired by Miller to close out his outing. He ended the fifth inning with a beautiful two-seam fastball that froze Soto for a called strike three.
In the sixth, he struck out Judge looking and ended his outing by ripping a 95-mph fastball — his career-high 106th pitch of the outing — past Chisholm for a swinging striking three.
It was some redemption for Miller, who was roughed up by the Yankees in his previous outing.
Back on May 22 at Yankee Stadium, Miller gave up five runs on six hits, including two-run homers to Judge and Soto in a 7-3 loss.
Even with Miller’s strong outing, he was still in line for the loss for most of the evening since his teammates couldn’t solve the riddle of varied left-handed arm angles and offspeed pitches that Nestor Cortes utilized.
Cortes, who was briefly in the Mariners organization in 2020, pitched six scoreless innings, allowing four hits with three walks and six strikeouts.
Over the first seven innings, the Mariners were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, stranding eight runners on base.
Would they be held scoreless and suffer another 1-0 loss?
Turner gave the Mariners hope in the bottom of the eighth.
Facing right-hander Clay Holmes, who was once the Yankees closer, Turner sat on a hanging breaking ball and pulled it over the left field wall for a game-tying solo homer.
Seattle still couldn’t push across a go-ahead run in the ninth. Rodriguez struck out swinging against Luke Weaver with J.P. Crawford standing on second as the winning run to end the inning.
After striking out the side in the ninth, Collin Snider gave up a double to Rizzo on his first pitch to start the top of the 10th, allowing Dominguez, the automatic runner, to score the go-ahead run.