For the better part of six innings on Tuesday night the Mariners offense was atrocious and on the verge of ruining a terrific night of pitching.
It took two pitches to change the entire tenor of the evening and snap the Mariners’ four-game losing streak.
J.P. Crawford delivered the final blow with a single that scored Leody Taveras in the 11th inning and gave the M’s a 2-1 win over the New York Yankees.
Ben Williamson opened the 11th with a sharp single that was hit too hard — 105.4-mph exit velocity — to send Taveras from second base. It was the Mariners first hit since Cal Raleigh’s RBI double in the fourth inning that scored Julio Rodríguez with Seattle’s only run up to that point.
Crawford followed on the next pitch with a line drive that fell just fair down the left-field line and set off a celebration that the M’s would have preferred a couple of innings earlier.
The M’s were on the verge of escaping with a 1-0 victory thanks to stellar pitching that started with Bryan Woo before giving up the tying run in the ninth.
Pinch-runner Pablo Reyes scored from third on Dylan Moore’s throwing error trying to come home after fielding Anthony Volpe’s check swing to first base.
But the strong pitching continued in extras. Carlos Vargas was brilliant in the top of the 10th striking out DJ LeMahieu and Trent Grisham, smartly intentionally walking Aaron Judge and getting a fly out from Cody Bellinger. Casey Legumina was equally good in the 11th, working around a two-out walk to get through the inning unscathed.
Andrés Muñoz was asked to try and preserve the M’s 1-0 lead in the ninth inning. He opened the inning by hitting Paul Goldschmidt with a 2-2 fastball that tailed too far inside. Goldschmidt immediately stole second on the next pitch and was replaced by Reyes.
Austin Wells grounded out slowly to third base, which allowed Reyes to move up 90 feet, but Wells likely should have been out on the previous pitch as home plate umpire Mark Wegner seemed to struggle with consistency both ways throughout the night.
All that set the stage for Volpe’s check-swing bouncer. Moore charged and fielded it cleanly but threw on the run as Reyes came to the plate. The throw was wide and Raleigh never had a chance as Reyes tied the game at 1-1.
The error by Moore meant Muñoz still has not allowed an earned run in 19th appearances this season. Muñoz seemed to get a makeup call later in the inning from Wegner that Aaron Boone argued vehemently enough to get ejected and the M’s escaped the inning still tied.
Woo was terrific and kept the Yankees scoreless into the seventh inning. Woo ended up going 6 1/3 innings, allowed four hits, walked none and struck out six. He needed to be great because even though the M’s chased Yankees ace Max Fried after five innings they managed only the one run off the lefty and the relievers that followed.
Rodríguez led off the fourth inning with a single and scored on Raleigh’s double, and that was about the extent of the Mariners offense all night, which put even more pressure on the pitching staff.
Woo gave up a one-out double to Bellinger in the first inning, then retired the next 15 batters in a row. He even got Judge to flail at a sweeper for one of his six K’s.
And while it’s still all about the fastball for Woo, he threw 18 sweepers against the Yankees and only one of them was put into play.
Woo has pitched six or more innings in all eight of his starts this season, tied for the most in baseball with Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler. He’s the first M’s pitcher to accomplish that since Hisashi Iwakuma did it in 2014.
Lefty Gabe Speier was clutch to get through the seventh inning after replacing Woo and Matt Brash was terrific in the eighth including a strike out of Judge.
While the Mariners managed only the RBI double from Raleigh, they made Yankees ace Max Fried work and labor to get through five innings in the same way they did earlier in the season to Boston’s Garret Crochet and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal.
Three ace lefties and yet none of them could finish off six innings against the M’s. Fried was done after five innings and 91 pitches, his shortest outing of the season since his first start of the season on March 29 when he went 4 2/3 innings and left with the Yankees leading 16-6.