More magic mojo for never-say-die Mariners
Even the manager gave up on this one.
“You have to figure there will be days when the other team gets good pitching, and they make the big plays,” Scott Servais said on Thursday afternoon.
“I kind of accepted it, that this one was gone for us.”
Servais was particularly sure that the Mariners would have to swallow a rare early-season defeat when Mitch Haniger — who had been the hero with a game-winning homer off Brad Boxberger less than 24 hours earlier — hit a drive to left-center with two outs in the ninth.
This one wasn’t going to carry, despite some help from the wind, and Kansas City center fielder Billy Hamilton had it measured.
“I could see the angle and I knew Hamilton’s speed,” Servais said. “He was going to get here. Mitch had fought through a great at-bat (nine pitches against Boxberger), but he didn’t quite get all of it.”
INDEED, THE incredibly swift Hamilton raced on to the warning track, glided under the ball…
And watched it glance off the tip of his glove.
Against all odds, the Mariners scored two runs on what turned out to be a triple, and one inning later. Daniel Vogelbach hit a screamer into the seats in right-center to hand Seattle a 7-6 victory — the M’s sixth straight win, an improbable triumph, to be sure.
The Mariners had trailed 4-0 and didn’t make a peep for five dull innings against Royals starter Jorge Lopez.
When they finally did score, it was stick figure Dee Gordon yanking a solo home to right off a Lopez curveball.
Gordon’s 16th homer — spanning nine seasons and 866 games — didn’t seem as though it would change the outcome of the game, but it did hand the Mariners a slice of history.
They became the first team ever to whack at least one homer in the first 15 games of a season.
Vogelbach’s rocket, which Servais called a “one-iron,” was Seattle’s 36th home run so far, just an astonishing number.
Consider: The 2002 Indians, whom the M’s displaced in the record books, managed 21 homers in 14 games.
Or this: Jay Bruce leads the club with seven homers, and Vogelbach now has six. The Detroit Tigers, all of them, have managed just five.
YES, YES, it’s ridiculously early in what GM Jerry Dipoto described as a “step-back year.”
But still…
Every M’s regular and 11 players in all have homered.
The whole thing just feels as though there’s some kind of magic mojo to it.
Even relief pitching and defense, deemed catastrophic weaknesses on opening day, have been cleaned up and…
OK, maybe not the defense.
Seattle leads the world in errors, and that’s not likely to change.
But the bullpen?
Rule 5 draftee Brandon Brennan, former White Sox farmhand, was credited with Thursday’s win; minor league swap product Connor Sadzeck became the sixth Mariner to record a save in the same game, and Anthony Swarzak — a throw-away piece (no pun intended) in the Robbie Cano-Edwin Diaz deal with the Mets — looks super-sharp after a spring injury.
Oh, and in 12 combined appearances, that trio has allowed just seven hits and zip runs.
All three have wicked stuff, and Dipoto must be pleased that of these strong-armed surprises, only Swarzak is over 30.
The Mariners obviously won’t just maul the American League and cruise to a World Series sweep, but there is some bona fide talent lurking on this “step-back” squad.
Plus, some of the craziest things have happened already.
We’ll get to those another day.
In the meantime, as Dipoto put it…
“How can you not enjoy watching these guys play?”
Gotcha, Jerry.
Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns for The Press appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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