Mariners throw singles party in Surprise, defeat Rangers 9-5
Canzone homers again, Mariners stack singles to win against their AL West rivals
Today the Mariners traveled to Surprise, land of retirement communities and strip malls, to take on the reigning World Series Champions, the Texas Rangers. Both teams ran out lesser versions of their full-strength lineups, but the end result was similar to what we’ve seen from both teams this spring: lots of offense, a little less pitching, and an eventual 9-5 win for the visiting Mariners.
It wasn’t the most scintillating pitching matchup, with Tyson Miller stepping in for Bryce Miller, who pitched on the backfields today rather than giving the Rangers an extra look at him and his new bag of tricks. Meanwhile, Seattle-born former Mariner Adrian Sampson made the start for Texas, and the Mariners got to him early: J.P. Crawford led off the game with a double, Cal Raleigh singled to bring home J.P., and then Dominic Canzone sent this baseball to live in a retirement community down the road:
Tyson Miller pitched two clean innings, working around a sun double and getting helped out by Cade Marlowe making a difficult play on a ball hit deep over his head in center; he struck out two, both on the slider. But the Rangers took a 4-3 lead against Brett de Geus, who struggled against his former team; the Rangers were ultra-aggressive against de Geus, who threw four pitches total to the first four batters, resulting in a hit by pitch, flyout, Baltimore chop base hit, and RBI single, all on the sinker. The next three batters reached via ground rule double, walk and RBI single before de Geus was able to get Davis Wendzel to ground into a double play. de Geus’s stuff remains nasty but he struggled to command it today.
The Mariners tied it up in the fourth with some small ball: Luke Raley (yay!) and Cade Marlowe singled, Brian Anderson walked to load the bases, and after a fielder’s choice out at home, the run eventually scored on a wild pitch. Whatever works. J.P. Crawford then came through with a two-run, line-drive single to give the Mariners a 6-4 advantage. With two outs.
Ryne Stanek made his Mariner debut and looked about as big and nasty as advertised, sitting between 97-99 on the fastball, which he threw almost exclusively. It wasn’t a clean inning: he gave up a base hit, and needed an exceptional diving play by Raley in right to clear the inning—but he also struck out Justin Foscue swinging after 97.
The Rangers got a run back in the bottom of the fifth when Adolis García pounced on the first pitch he saw from Joey Krehbiel, but the Mariners—now playing mostly their reserves— took that run back again with some more small ball off Austin Pruitt, who they touched up for four singles (the RBI coming on a parachute shot into left from Michael Papierski). Another run scored on a Canzone sac fly to make it 8-5 Mariners.
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