ATLANTA – The complaints about his frustratingly slow start to every season remain valid based on empirical data. The expectations for even more production with some consistency will continue to be demanded – it’s something he wants as well. And the narrative that Julio Rodríguez never comes through in clutch situations? Well, that’s something he’s working to disprove.
The Mariners’ now familiar trend toward finding failure on the road started to build in the later innings on Saturday night. They’d lost the two-run lead Rodríguez had provided with his 29th homer of the season in the first inning. They also somehow failed to capitalize on seven walks handed out by Braves pitching over the first six innings.
But Rodríguez, who has been the Mariners’ best hitter since the All-Star break, made sure they wouldn’t lose a fifth straight game on this road trip. And he did so in preposterous fashion.
With Randy Arozarena on second base in the top of the seventh of a tie game, Rodríguez lashed at a 97-mph fastball from Atlanta reliever Daysbel Hernández on a 3-2 count. It produced a low line drive that started to climb as it kept carrying.
The ball, which exited his bat 113.5 mph at a 21-degree launch angle, rocketed over the wall in center field, splashing into the waterfall roughly 30 feet behind the 400-foot sign. Rodríguez’s 30th homer of the season gave the Mariners an emotional lift and a two-run lead they would continue to add to in what would be much-needed 10-2 pasting of the Braves.
“That was a tee shot,” manager Dan Wilson said. “A big moment for our club, and he rose to the moment. It was just a great, great ball game for Julio at a time when we really needed it.”
Rodríguez has now hit 110 home runs in his first four seasons as a big leaguer. And while he has hit longer homers in his career – MLB Statcast had the blast at 441 feet – and he’s hit more than a few in high-leverage situations, the homer off Hernández was absolutely critical for a reeling Mariners team.
“It definitely felt good,” Rodriguez said. “Being able to hit that and put us on top, it definitely felt like some release.”
Since the All-Star break, Rodriguez has played in all 46 of the Mariners games, posting a .293/.325/.596 slash line with seven doubles, a triple, 16 homers, 36 and seven stolen bases. In hindsight, the decision to forego playing in the All-Star game at Truist Park to instead take a mental break was the right one.
“I needed a reset,” he said. “I needed time for myself to be able to play my best, because that’s the most important thing, to play my best for the team. I don’t regret it at all because I feel like it put me in a so much better headspace and in a better spot to play my best.”
The homer seemed to open a dam of hits and runs that had been welling on this road trip. With two outs in the inning, Eugenio Suárez hit a solo homer to left to make it 5-2 and put an end to Hernández’s outing. The Braves right-hander had allowed only one homer this season and two the last two seasons (58 innings pitched).
The Mariners greeted Hernández’s replacement, Hayden Harris, with more hits. Jorge Polanco doubled to left field and scored on J.P. Crawford’s single to left-center to make it 6-2.
“It been a little while coming,” Wilson said. “It was a little frustrating there for a little bit because we couldn’t get anybody in. But after that the flood gates opened. It’s something that we really needed tonight and a good one to go in tomorrow with.”
In the eighth inning, Josh Naylor hit a three-run homer to make it 9-2.
And not wanting to be left out of the home-run hitting party, Cal Raleigh launched home run No. 52 – a solo bomb in the ninth inning off the Chop House restaurant in right field.
“When somebody does something big for the team, I feel like you can always feel that positivity for the team,” Rodriguez said. “It was really cool to see everybody kind of following up on the homer and everybody else just kept pouring it on.”
The Mariners got a solid, if not lengthy, start from Bryce Miller, who worked 5 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on five hits with two walks and three strikeouts.
Miller retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced. His first run allowed came in somewhat impressive fashion in the fourth inning. A misplaced split-finger fastball to Matt Olson was turned into a 459-foot solo homer to deep right-center.
After working out of trouble in the fourth and fifth, stranding the tying run in scoring position both innings, Miller didn’t make it out of the sixth inning. He allowed back-to-back, one-out singles to Ozzie Albies and Ha-Seong Kim and walked Ronald Acuna to load the bases.
“I came out attacking,” Miller said. “That was the main plan. I executed that, maybe not as good fifth and sixth inning.”
Wilson went to Gabe Speier to clean up the mess. Speier gave up a deep fly ball to Michael Harris II that allowed Albies to tag up and score the tying run.
Making his eighth career start for the Braves, rookie right-hander Hurston Waldrep came into his outing having posted a 4-0 record and 1.08 ERA in his last five starts and one long-relief appearance.
The Mariners got to him immediately and probably should’ve done more damage. After Raleigh worked a one-out walk in the top of the first, Rodríguez jumped on an 0-2 split-finger fastball that stayed on the inner half of the plate. The two-run blast was a rocket off the facing of the upper deck in left field.
Was he looking for the splitter?
“I feel like the scouting report was out,” Rodriguez said with a chuckle.
Rodriguez is six stolen bases away from achieving a 30-30 season for the second time in his career.