SEATTLE — For people who prefer the symmetry of nice round numbers, perhaps they could’ve waited another day.
But when the baseball stars aligned, and all the teams that the Mariners and their fans wanted to lose on Friday night suffered defeat before the first pitch at T-Mobile Park, well, opportunity presented itself.
All they had to do is beat the pesky Kansas City Royals, a task that have proved to be more difficult than fans might expect, and they would find themselves in a place where Seattle Mariners teams hadn’t been in decades.
With J.P. Crawford setting the tone, smashing a homer on the first pitch of the game from Royals starter Brady Singer and Eugenio Suarez driving in three runs in the game, the Mariners opened the homestand with a 7-5 victory over Kansas City, much to the delight of a sold-out crowd of 45,175.
With the win, the Mariners moved into a tie with the Texas Rangers for first place in the American League West.
The last time Seattle was atop the division this late in a season was 19 years, 11 months and 30 days ago to be exact. On Aug. 26, 2003, the Mariners defeated the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 9-3, to hold first place in the division. Seattle lost 8-4 the next day and the surging Oakland A’s took over the AL West lead and never gave it back, rolling to 96 wins.
That’s a span of 19 years, 11 months and 30 days or basically one day shy of an even 20 years.
But why wait for round numbers?
After pitching himself into a bind and finding himself with the bases loaded and two outs, and with the sellout crowd standing and cheering in mixture of anxiety and anticipation, Andres Munoz struck out Freddy Fermin to close out the win.
So how did they wind up in first?
At Target Field in Minnesota, the Twins turned a 4-1 game into a 10-1 rout, scoring six runs in the seventh inning to defeat the scuffling Rangers, who have lost eight in a row.
In Detroit, Tigers rookie Parker Meadows, who was called up four days ago, hit his first career homer — a three-run walk-off blast in bottom ninth deep into the right field seats of Comerica Park — off Houston Astros closer Ryan Pressley to rally the Tigers for a stunning 3-1 win.
Up north of the border, the Toronto Blue Jays gave up three homers in a 5-3 home loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
And, of course, Seattle had to win.
The Mariners got an uneven start from rookie Bryce Miller, who made it through only four innings, giving up three runs on six hits with a walk and six strikeouts.
The young right-hander looked sharp in a quick 1-2-3 inning and was given an immediate 2-0 lead.
Crawford ambushed the first pitch of the game from Royals starter Singer, hitting his longest homer of his career — a 432-foot blast into the right field seats. Seattle added another run as Julio Rodriguez reached on an infield single, stole second base and scored on Cal Raleigh’s soft liner into left-center.
Given a 2-0 lead, Miller did anything but provide a shutdown inning. Instead, he struggled gave up three runs in the top of the second, allowing three straight hits to start the frame for a run. His wayward pickoff throw to first base that couldn’t be gloved by Ty France allowed another run to score. The Royals took the lead Kyle Isbel’s single to left. But Dominic Canzone was able to throw out Drew Waters at the plate to prevent another run from scoring.
Miller was able to finish the inning and even game came back a 1-2-3 third inning. But after issuing a two-out walk, allowing another hit and getting saved on Suarez’s backhand snag of a line drive, the Mariners opted to go their bullpen for the fifth inning instead of bringing Miller back out at 83 pitches.
The Mariners retook the lead in the top of the fourth on Suarez’s bases-loaded single to left that scored a pair of runs. Seattle pushed the lead to 6-3 with Teoscar Hernandez leading off the inning with a double and later scoring on a wild pitch and Josh Rojas’ RBI single to right, which was his 10th hit in his last five games.
The Royals cut the lead to one run on Isbel’s two-run homer off Matt Brash in the seventh inning. But Suarez added an RBI double in the eighth for a much needed insurance run.
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