First big league game. First big league walkoff.
Welcome to the majors, Cole Young. Just remember to touch first base.
The 21-year-old in his first major-league game did just enough to score Miles Mastrobuoni with the winning run in the 11th inning and give the Mariners a 5-4 victory and snap a three-game losing streak Saturday.
Leody Taveras opened the 11th inning with a sacrifice bunt to move the winning run 90 feet away. Young, who came up with the first base hit of his major-league career in the ninth inning, dribbled a two-strike pitch from Cole Sands about 60 feet up the first-base line. Former Mariner Ty France made a barehanded grab of the chopper and threw home in an attempt to cut down the run, but Mastrobuoni slid before the tag and set off a celebration the youngster won’t forget – although he had to be reminded by first-base coach Eric Young Jr. to touch the bag.
Young, the No. 2 prospect in the Mariners farm system, was called up earlier Saturday to make his debut and do exactly what he did – provide a spark for a team in need of a little jolt.
The M’s never should have found themselves in extra innings, but a three-base throwing error by Carlos Vargas allowed Minnesota to tie the game in the ninth. With one out, Vargas made an athletic leaping snap of Byron Buxton’s chopper, but fired the throw to first down the right field line and allowed speedy Buxton to reach third. With the infield pulled in, Trevor Larnach followed with a single and pulled the Twins even at 4-4.
Regular closer Andrés Muñoz was not available a day after throwing 24 pitches and giving up his first earned runs of the season that allowed Minnesota to tie the game in the ninth inning on Friday night and eventually score six runs in the 10th inning of a 12-6 win.
But Collin Snider pitched two scoreless innings with a little help from Julio Rodríguez throwing out Matt Wallner at the plate trying to score from second base on Kody Clemens’ single in the 10th inning. Rodríguez’s throw made up for striking out with the bases loaded for the final out of the ninth inning after the Twins decided they wanted no part of Cal Raleigh and intentionally walked the M’s hottest hitter.
For most of the evening, it appeared the M’s would again rely just on the swing of Raleigh for offense. A night after hitting two homers, Raleigh was at it again with his 22nd of the season, a two-run shot in the third inning that capped the best month of slugging by any Mariners player since Nelson Cruz.
Raleigh finished May with 12 homers, the first M’s hitter to reach that mark in a month since Cruz did it in August 2015.
In the half-inning following Raleigh’s homer, alarms rang out and lights flashed around the stadium causing a 10-minute delay in the game. It also led to plenty of jokes about the alarms being in response to how hot Raleigh’s been of late.
Nine of his 12 homers in May came over the final 15 games of the month, a stretch where he slugged over .800 and drove in 16 runs.
J.P. Crawford added a two-run homer in the seventh inning that gave the M’s a 4-3 lead that stood until Vargas’ error in the ninth.
Along with the arrival of Young, Bryce Miller also made his return to the rotation as the starting staff continued to get closer to fully healthy.
Miller was lifted after four innings and 71 pitches making his first start since landing on the injured list with inflammation in his elbow a little over two weeks ago. In the time since, Miller received a cortisone shot and felt the discomfort in his elbow leave as he worked through a series of bullpens and simulated games.
Would a rehab start in the minors have helped Miller? It’s a fair question, especially with how Logan Evans threw in his final start before being optioned back to the minors. But outside of one inning, Miller managed to make his way through the Twins lineup mostly unscathed.
The problem was the one inning ended up being damaging enough that Miller would face a short day and called upon the Mariners bullpen for another long evening of work. Miller threw 26 pitches and faced eight batters in the second inning. He struggled to locate his fastball and fell behind Wallner 3-1 when he did land a fastball middle of the plate. It was hit 344 feet into the right field seats for a 2-0 Twins lead.
Miller gave up a single to Willi Castro on an 0-2 pitch and he eventually scored on Byron Buxton’s two-out base hit.
Miller ended up facing 19 batters over his four innings and struck out two. Miller’s velocity was also on par with where he’s been most of the season, although he did nearly touch 97 mph with his fastball early in the game.