Mariners go back, jack, do it again, walk off White Sox 2-1

Fun fact: I attempted to give blood this week, but could not, because my blood pressure (normally well within the normal range) was startlingly high. Trying to find a reason for the sudden spike, the kindly attendant asked, do you have a stressful job? To which I replied:

Tonight the Mariners secured a series win, again in dramatic fashion, squeaking out a 2-1 win over the White Sox in 10 innings. You could call it Chaos Ball—our old friend—but tonight’s win was, for an extra-innings one-run win, remarkably unchaotic, despite the many late-and-close situations. Perhaps it’s the historic ineptitude of the White Sox, but there’s a feeling from these Mariners that they’re going to get the job done nonetheless.

“You just know you’re going to get the best version of us in those moments,” said Scott Servais postgame.

Still, it would be nice if one did not have to wait quite so long for said moments. The Mariners had opportunities to get to White Sox rookie Jonathan Cannon tonight and failed to convert them into anything regarding runs, or even significant pressure on Cannon, who was at a 84 pitches through five innings of work, but managed to work through the sixth after getting three quick outs. The Mariners had an opportunity in the second, when Dominic Canzone crushed a two-out double, but Mitch Garver—aboard with a walk—couldn’t make it home, and Tyler Locklear struck out to end the inning. A one-out Cal Raleigh single in the fourth came to nothing when Luke Raley grounded into a fielder’s choice and then was caught stealing to end the inning.

But then Luke went ahead and totally redeemed himself:

It’s understandable the White Sox wanted to wait as long as possible to get to their lamentable bullpen, and Cannon had been nails all game, but this is an objectively Bad Pitch. However, the gamble paid off; Cannon got the next two outs to go as far as he could for the Sox without them getting slapped with an OSHA violation. Is it possible to give an opposing player the Sun Hat Award? Because Cannon probably deserves it.

Meanwhile, Bryce Miller also held the White Sox off the board, despite allowing some traffic early: he had a who had to work around a walk in the first, an infield base hit in the second, a leadoff double on the first pitch of the third inning, and a leadoff walk in the fourth. Each time, however, the wiry Texan worked himself out of danger, and managed to get more efficient as he hummed along, working seven scoreless innings.

Miller leaned heavily on his four-seamer tonight, throwing it over half the time, and even more as he got deeper into the game. Of the 49 he threw, batters swung at it 33 times, often making weak contact or missing it entirely (11 whiffs); he also got seven called strikes on the pitch. Servais said postgame that Miller said he found a little more vertical movement on the pitch while throwing a bullpen, and he had a suspicion that it would be special tonight.

“His four seamer has been such a dominant pitch for him and it hasn’t quite been there the last couple times. It’s something we wanted to get back, staying behind the ball and letting the ball ride. He had a lot of swings and misses with the four-seam fastball, that was great to see.”

Austin Voth covered the eighth and was absolutely lights-out, perhaps the best we’ve seen him, striking out the side, all swinging, and coming three pitches away from an immaculate inning. “Voth has been awesome over the last month and a half,” said Servais. “He’s really starting to find his stride.”

The White Sox turned to Jordan Leasure, last seen giving up a grand slam to Cal Raleigh, to pitch the eighth. He gave off a leadoff single to Tyler Locklear, who moved to second on a Ryan Bliss sacrifice. Unfortunately the White Sox—who seem to only be able to make incredible defensive plays or bonehead ones, no in between—robbed J.P. Crawford of a single, and then caught Locklear off second for an inning-ending double play, a lost opportunity that would loom large in the next inning.

With Andrés Muñoz still on the shelf and Ryne Stanek down after last night, the Mariners put out Big Mike Baumann, and the White Sox immediately countered with Even Larger Luis Robert Jr. It only took one pitch for Robert to undo everything Bryce Miller and the Mariners had worked for, as Robert ambushed the first pitch he saw for a game-tying home run (shockingly, only the first pinch-hit home run of his career. Boy LRJ has just not played as many games as you think he has). A walk and a wild pitch later, a runner was standing on second for Tayler Saucedo, in to face the lefty Oscar Colás—except of course he did not, because the White Sox immediately pinch-hit righty Danny Mendick. Handedness aside, Sauce got Mendick to ground out on a comebacker right to him. Good Sauce.

The White Sox brought out Michael Kopech to send the game to extras. The always-wild Kopech walked Julio, but also got Rojas to ground out and struck out Cal Raleigh on 99 swinging. Luke Raley was the Mariners’ last best chance and unfortunately, this time could not come up with the game winner, hitting the ball hard but directly at the left fielder.

The Mariners summoned Trent Thornton from the bullpen—not ideal, as Thornton would be pitching on back-to-back days. A groundout off the bat of Zach DeLoach moved the runner to third, and another groundout—beautifully fielded by Rojas, who looked the runner back to third before tossing to first, likely saving the game in the process—made the second out. The White Sox pinch-hit with Andrew Benintendi, who was just reinstated from the IL today after rehabbing left Achilles tendinitis. Thornton did not welcome him back to the bigs politely:

Servais has warned us that Thornton is “fiery”: do not be fooled by his rec specs and slighter stature, this man is a vast simmering cauldron of Ampedness (okay, maybe more of like, a Crockpot of Ampedness).

The White Sox turned to Steven Wilson in the bottom of the tenth, who got Mitch Garver to fly out in a way that did not advance the runner. The Sox then opted to walk Canzone to set up a double play and also get to a righty bat—Mitch Haniger, pinch-hitting for Victor Robles, who had come in as a defensive replacement. Haniger immediately fell into an 0-2 count but battled, just missing what would have been the game-winning double into the right field corner. He fouled off pitch after pitch, lengthening his swing path to get to the sweepers Wilson was firing off the far edge of the plate, and spitting on the ones that weren’t close to draw the count to 2-2. Finally, one missed its spot, and Haniger did not miss it.

“Unbelievable at-bat by Mitch,” said Servais.

“This team is starting to gain a ton of momentum [in these recent late and close games]. Once you start getting that feeling, okay, we’re tied in the ninth, tenth: we’re gonna win. We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win. And it goes a long way when you get that mindset. Everybody in the ballpark, I think, feels the same way as our guys in the dugout.”

(Tell that to Bloodworks Northwest, Scott.)

This weekend the Mariners will get a much tougher test with the high-powered Texas Rangers offense coming to town. One or two runs isn’t going to be enough to keep them in the games against the Rangers. Mitch Haniger acknowledges that the offense hasn’t played up to their standards, while maintaining the same confidence that radiates from the dugout.

“I feel like over the last couple of weeks we’ve been playing a lot better, but we still know we can improve and get better,” he said.

“And I think that’s the scary thing for other teams to see this. We know we’re capable of much more, so it’s a pretty cool feeling…just keep showing up every night, keep winning and keep stockpiling these wins.”