Mariners Postgame: Keep fighting one day at a time
The Mariners kept their playoff hopes alive with a resounding win over the Texas Rangers. Prepare to be scoreboard watching the rest of the weekend.
Mariners fans, it’s time to get a two or a three-screen setup in your living room because we have much scoreboard-watching to do. As for the team themselves, the approach remains the same; take it day by day.
Seattle experienced a rare comfortable win over the Texas Rangers on Friday night, winning 8-0 behind a barrage of homers from J.P. Crawford, Ty France, and Josh Rojas. While the game's result was about as good as you could ask for, America’s Team didn’t get much help.
The Astros defeated the Diamondbacks in a close one, meaning Arizona cannot clinch for another day. Chicago was defeated by Milwaukee thanks to old friend Carlos Santana, putting the Diamondbacks one win away from clinching.
Toronto throttled Tampa Bay, making it much more difficult for Seattle to catch up.
The multitude of scenarios by which the Mariners can make the postseason is shrinking by the day. The best one? Sweep the Texas Rangers and pray to the baseball gods for help.
While the Rangers have looked unbeatable in most of their head-to-head play this season, Seattle’s walk-off win last night seems to have jolted life back into this team.
The Bryan Woo start was undoubtedly the reg flag matchup of the series, especially due to the fact he would be squaring off with Nathan Eovaldi. Woo did his job by nibbling around the edges, and even though he threw just 3.2 innings of scoreless ball.
Ty France and Josh Rojas got Seattle on the board, challenging the marine layer with monster solo blasts. J.P. Crawford’s grand slam in the fifth inning put the game out of reach and also continued an incredible stretch for Seattle’s star shortstop.
What more can you say about Crawford? The grand slam pushed his batting average to .687 with the bases loaded this season and upped his season high in home runs to 19.
While it wasn’t always pretty, Woo doing his job and the offense finally showing up in a big way has set things up in the best way imaginable for the club.
This team is built on pitching and run prevention, plain and simple. Their two best pitchers will throw in each of the next two days, not to mention the fact that the bullpen will be at full strength for the final two contests. To make the situation even better, Texas hasn’t announced a starter for either of the next two games.
Winning tomorrow gives the Mariners a much cleaner path, but in all reality, the club needs to sweep to give themselves a solid chance. They have set themselves up to do so behind two of the best starters in the American League.
This team never makes it easy, but they have once again put themselves in a position to play October baseball.
All of us fans can focus on the scoreboard across the league, but the team just needs to take it one at-bat, one pitch, and one game at a time. GOMS.