It was sometime after midnight in Seattle, 3 a.m. back at his family home in Orlando, Florida, when Leo Rivas connected with his wife, Hilary Guzman.
At that point, she had no idea what her husband had done.
Rivas, with just the second home run of his big-league career, had delivered the Mariners’ most unexpected walkoff of the season (ever?) late Wednesday, a big moment from a player given little chance to make it here.
And the most important person in his life had slept right through it.
After he left T-Mobile Park, Rivas checked in with Hilary, who had been awakened back home by the couple’s 3-month-old son.
“She was still half asleep … and she asked me, like, ‘How was your night?’ ” Rivas said. “And I was like, ‘You haven’t seen it?’ ”
That’s when she noticed the many messages and notifications on her phone.
“Wait, wait, wait – did you hit another homer?” she said.
Rivas then watched, through FaceTime, as she watched for the first time the highlight of his 13th-inning, two-run home run. She cried a bit. He did too.
“I feel out of this world how she makes me feel,” Rivas said a day later. “It was awesome just to see her enjoying it the same (way) I do.”
The young couple has been through so much already. They’ve been together since they were 15 years old in Venezuela, before Rivas signed his first pro contract, for a meager $40,000 as part of the Los Angeles Angels’ 2014 international class. They’ve navigated through a decade of ups and downs in the minor leagues, most of it while raising an 8-year-old daughter and, now, a baby boy.
A few years ago, when Rivas thought his career was bottoming out in Double-A. He felt stuck and was worried about the future.
It was Hilary who urged him on and helped him refocus his mindset.
“I was struggling a lot, like, being present,” he said. “I was thinking too much in the future or the past. So she helped me a lot in that situation.”
That attitude helped him thrive this summer in Triple-A Tacoma, even with uncertainty about his next chance at a big-league promotion with the Mariners.
“I’m just trying to be present and be grateful every day for the opportunity just to be here, even in the big leagues or Triple-A,” he said. “That’s an opportunity that not a lot of people have, so I’m just grateful for that and just take it day by day. … I’m not perfect. I’m still thinking, ‘What if? What if not?’ But I’m trying to focus on just trying to be present every day and just be grateful.”
Rivas, nicknamed “Papa” around the club, is regarded as one of the most earnest and likable players on the team, part of the reason why his heroics Wednesday against the St. Louis Cardinals were particularly meaningful for everyone.
A week earlier, Rivas hit his first MLB home run, but it happened on the road late in a blowout loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. There wasn’t much of a celebration.
It was, of course, a much different scene late Wednesday, when Rivas was mobbed at the plate by the entire team after his second home run ended the Mariners’ longest game in three years.
The celebration carried on in the clubhouse, where Rivas was given the traditional “beer shower.” Teammates doused him with light beer and just about anything else they could get ahold of – ketchup, mustard, shaving cream, baby powder.
Even after cleaning himself up, Rivas was still sticking his finger in his left ear an hour later trying to get more guck out.
“Leo’s such an exceptional person, and you can’t help but root for him,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “He has that impact on people where he makes you a better person by being around him. When you see something like that happened to a player like Leo, it lifts everybody up.”
Traded from the Angels to Cincinnati in 2020, Rivas became a free agent after the 2022 season. He signed a minor-league deal with the Mariners in January of 2023 and received his first invitation to big-league spring training. That gave him a fresh start and renewed confidence.
He made his MLB debut with the Mariners in April 2024, and he’s bounced up and down between Triple-A Tacoma and Seattle eight times the past two seasons.
A 27-year-old listed at 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds, Rivas has built a reputation as a defensive wiz. He’s had more than 3,300 plate appearances across 10 seasons in the minors, and statistically, he had his best season this year in Tacoma, hitting .318 with 10 homers and a .978 OPS in 299 plate appearances.
He’s also produced at the majors in limited opportunities with the Mariners, first in the spring and now again after being recalled when rosters expanded on Sept. 1. In 92 plate appearances with Seattle this season, he’s hit .276 with a .402 on-base percentage and a 130 OPS+ (100 is average).
The recent struggles of rookie Cole Young have opened the door for more playing time at second base for Rivas, who started Thursday’s series opener against the Angels.
Rookie Harry Ford, another September call-up, delivered a second straight extra-innings walkoff late Thursday, moving the Mariners into a tie with the Astros atop the AL West.
For the season’s final two weeks, Wilson has veteran Jorge Polanco, Rivas and Young to mix and match at second base.
“This time of year,” Wilson said, “you’re trying to find who’s swinging the bat the best … as long as you’re not hurting yourself defensively, which all those guys do such a good job there. So you’re weighing the different options, weighing the matchups and seeing what works best.
But to have all three of those options, and to have guys putting up good at-bats, that’s a great luxury.”