It takes vision, patience, and consistency to grind out a victory like tonight’s.
My experience with sculpting is the grinding of my jaws pressing molars against molars, agitatedly expressing my nerves in friction between my teeth. One day, I will chew my last ice cube, retire my gnashing jersey and watch it lofted into the rafters of my palate. Until that day, however, I will have useful reference for what these Seattle Mariners are capable of, and why their campaign of explosion and attrition against opposing pitchers has been so effective in the early going.
Tuesday night started off splendidly, as Julio Rodríguez clocked a solo homer on a night where Cal Raleigh was out of the starting lineup. Hitting third, Julio employed his frequent strategy of aggression against the first pitch, for which he’s not had quite the consistent slugging desired in 2025.
It was a great night for Julio, and a night Seattle could not have won without him being great. The young outfielder’s three hits included a lashed single in the ninth that put him in what was ultimately crucial position as the go-ahead run. His one empty plate appearance stuck with me as well. This was the top of the fifth, with things knotted 2-2 after Miles Mastrobuoni had an early RBI double and another strong start by Emerson Hancock had nonetheless featured a pair of runs from the pesky A’s. Seattle had two on and one out from a J.P. Crawford single that extended his hitting streak to 14 games, along with a full health Jorge Polanco free pass from the right side.
The strike zone was at sea all evening, and Seattle was at times the beneficiary as well, but the surprising first pitch strike call on a mis-gripped curveball from Jeffrey Springs put Julio on the back foot immediately, and while he flew out to move Crawford forward, his frustration was audible.
Rightfully so, it would seem, and yet it read as aggravation in knowing his club needed him Tuesday night, more than most nights, to get that hit. Iterations of a pressing player who can’t help but overswing in aid of hitting an eight-run home run. Instead, it merely was his task to play an accumulative role, setting the scene for an ultimate victory through better and better play. Now rocking a .221/.323.407 line with a 116 wRC+ matching last year’s total, just about everything but the BABIP is looking more in alignment for Julio. Perhaps most delightfully, as fellow staffer Ryan Blake noted, the 23 consecutive plate appearances without a strikeout for Julio is a career long.
Julio hasn’t struck out in 23 plate appearances. 20.5% season k rate now.
But it wasn’t Julio’s day to be the star alone. The aforementioned Hancock, who Zach Mason thoroughly celebrated today, stood tall in a park that’s played hitter friendly in the majors on a windy day. Against the club with the second-fewest pitcher per plate appearance in the majors, Hancock worked in the zone without serving up the meatball specials that helped sink Seattle Monday.
He needed just 71 pitches to get through six innings, and it’s arguable he could’ve made it another inning given the bullpen’s heavy workload, but even this was plenty. Were Matt Brash not an overeager beaver in whipping his glove around in the 7th, there would’ve been an even smoother round of work by the ‘pen that might not have seen Gabe Speier struggle in inning two. Not necessarily the ideal fireman, Collin Snider gave up a single with runners on first and third in the 8th to yield one of Speier’s inherited runners. While he deftly shut down any further threat, Seattle’s inability to capitalize on a number of threats loomed large.
And yet, Sacramento’s bullpen casts a significantly shorter shadow right now. Having pushed Springs out after five frames, the Athletics got good innings from a combination of Noah Murdock, T.J. McFarland, and in particular Justin Sterner who now has worked 18.1 scoreless innings to start the season. The name not on that list is Mason Miller, whose imperviousness has been chipped at more recently, and whose lengthy, inefficient 27 pitch outing a night ago had him unavailable, as was his counterpart Andrés Muñoz. Because Seattle had ground Miller down, and because they’d threatened over and over this evening to force Sterner to go already and go long, veteran journeyman Tyler Ferguson was called on for the fourth-straight night to pitch the 9th and protect the A’s 3-2 lead.
With one out, the grind finally overtook Sacramento. Jorge Polanco walked. Julio’s single put the go-ahead run at first. Randy Arozarena loaded the bases being hit by a pitch as a laboring Ferguson vacillated between flying open to miss arm side and leaving pitches over the plate’s heart. From within the dugout came the man whom no sane pitcher wants up with runners on. Ferguson blinked and he was staring up at a three ball count. The shadow stretched from the batter’s box out over the pitcher’s mound, swallowing the exhausted A’s reliever. It darkened the Sacramento sky, stretching across the entire AL West. Cal Raleigh swung, Polanco jogged, Julio dashed, the score flipped for good.
An extra cushion from returned-and-healthy Dylan Moore’s sacrifice fly gave Carlos Vargas the opportunity for his first career save, something the rookie righty spoke to emotionally postgame with the support of bench coach Manny Acta. A night after having thrown 34 pitches himself, the elated Vargas escaped the heart of Sacramento’s order to secure the victory. A victory that was always there for them, it just needed to be uncovered, one chip at a time.