Walkoff (Teoscar’s version): Mariners beat Blue Jays in back-and-forth thriller
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – To begin a star-studded weekend here in the Emerald City, the Seattle Mariners took a dramatic victory over the visiting Toronto Blue Jays to start a series that never seems to disappoint here at T-Mobile Park. A tight and low scoring affair, both starting pitchers seemed to be in control of the game as their respective offenses failed to back them up. A Danny Jansen solo homer off Seattle’s Bryce Miller got the scoring start, and later a wild pitch by Prelander Berroa (making his MLB debut) scored Toronto’s second run. The Mariners went on to score the next three runs unanswered, capped off by Teoscar Hernandez slamming a base hit off the right field wall to walk off his former team.
“I know from back in my Toronto days, this series is going to be like that. It’s not going to be a series when one of those teams scores 10 runs every game. Everybody knows what kind of team they are, and they are a pretty good team. I think every series that we played against each other is like that. It has a lot of ups, downs, and close games.”
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller held the Blue Jays to a quiet night outside of Danny Jansen’s solo homer (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Miller makes do in limited outing
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller saw a limited outing in this ballgame as the coaching staff is trying to be careful in building his workload back up considering how much time the tall Texan had off with a blister injury and the All-Star break. While it was obvious that Miller wanted to finish out the inning, which is admirable, it’s probably smart that Seattle is monitoring his build up after being out for an extended period for the long run. If Miller can continue to get these strong outs for the Mariners as the second half continues, they will absolutely want to ensure that they can keep rolling him out for regularly scheduled starts. Despite being “limited” in today’s outing, Bryce gave his team an excellent chance to win this game as he held the Blue Jays to just three hits all night.
Miller’s night with his pitch arsenal was interesting, as he only threw three types of pitches and his fastball (his bread and butter at this point in his career) saw lowered velocity while those two other pitches saw increased. In addition to the heater, Miller largely deployed a slider while barely adding a changeup in tonight’s game. If we’re being harsh, Miller wasn’t as strong in his control as he perhaps would’ve liked, and those two walks could factor into his outing, but he was able to work around them. Another way that control may have factored in was hard hit balls, as Toronto had seven hard-hit plays in fair territory. Despite all that negative speak I just put out there, Miller only allowed those three hits as mentioned, with the one stain being the solo homer to Danny Jansen.
“I wanted to finish the inning. Felt good, 70-some pitches. Before I went out, they were like empty the tank, last inning here. I turned around and I saw skip walking out, didn’t expect him to be out coming out. But you know, is what it is. Felt good, and we got the win.”
Through the early part of the game, the Seattle Mariners offense was stagnant against former Mariners Yusei Kikuchi (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Mariners offense stagnant against Kikuchi, blasts Blue Jays bullpen
Facing off against former Mariner (And All-Star!) Yusei Kikuchi, the Seattle bats really were only able to muster a few dribblers down the third base line that put the Toronto infield in a tough position to try and field. JP Crawford continues to start ballgames off with offense for the Mariners as he drew a walk to leadoff, but it wouldn’t turn into anything for Seattle. The Mariners started to threaten in the second inning with two singles, but two strikeouts back-to-back killed any hope there. For the next few innings, if the Mariners got anything during this ballgame, it was the lone outlier during the inning as the rest of the batters failed to keep the line moving. Seattle had no answers for Kikuchi, who could’ve seen this as a revenge game, had his bullpen closed the door completely.
The sights as the Seattle Mariners celebrate Teoscar Hernandez’s walk off base hit in game one of the series against the Toronto Blue Jays (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Teoscar topples Toronto
In storybook fashion, Teoscar Hernandez played the hero in tonight’s game one of the series against Toronto. Mariners manager Scott Servais mentioned pregame how Hernandez may have been a bit excited when Seattle made the trip up to Toronto earlier this season, asking him to slow down a bit for this series. The former Blue Jay was able to play this game like it was any other opponent and not the one that he spent six years with, recording three hits tonight as arguably the best batter on the Mariners tonight which included the game winning base hit in the bottom of the ninth to get this series started off right for Seattle.
Hernandez continues to be The Man for Seattle during the summer to this point, racking up three hits including the eventual walk off in the bottom of the ninth. In fact, Teoscar tallied the first hit of the game when he recorded an infield hit in the bottom of the second. The Mariners got Hernandez in scoring position as Ty France singled but couldn’t keep the line moving as both AJ Pollock and Dylan Moore struck out. Teoscar tacked on his second hit of the day in the bottom of the fourth with a single into center field, the second consecutive time that his base hit had led off the frame for Seattle. Unfortunately, those hits would go to waste as the Mariners couldn’t completely solve Yusei Kikuchi. Hernandez was called upon in the bottom of the ninth, with Jose Caballero (walk) and Julio Rodriguez (intentional walk) on the base paths. A Eugenio Suarez flyout moved Caballero from second to third, setting up the perfect moment for Teo to take revenge. Against All-Star reliever Jordan Romano, Hernandez hammered the first pitch he saw as he took a slider outside of the zone the opposite way, sending it off the top of the right field wall as Blue Jays right fielder George Springer never had a chance.
“I hit it very good. I know it was gonna be either out of the ballpark or off wall. But I knew for sure that he wasn’t gonna cut it down... I was enjoying every single bit that can. Especially because we win the game. And for me, that’s all that matters. Emotions just came through, and you let it go.”
“You always trying to do good against the team that you were with, no matter what. But I don’t have anything negative to say about them, nothing personal either. It’s just emotions, heart, and I was enjoying the moment.”
Seattle Mariners reliever Prelander Berroa made his MLB debut in this game (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
‘Pen report
Like game three of the series against the Minnesota Twins, the Mariners had to deploy numerous relievers in this battle against the Blue Jays while also featuring an MLB debut. Seattle deployed five relievers in this ballgame, having to pick up the slack after they wanted to ensure that Bryce Miller didn’t go too far in this outing. Considering that starter George Kirby went seven innings yesterday, the Mariners bullpen could afford to send out some of their relief arms and they did just that tonight. Outside of Daulton Varsho’s pesky ability on the bases that eventually found him scoring on a Prelander Berroa wild pitch, the bullpen was rock solid and didn’t face much danger against a talented Blue Jays lineup.
It appeared that we’d say Bryce Miller come out of the ballgame before he could finish the fifth inning, but Seattle opted to yank their starter after he got the first out of the sixth inning. Justin Topa came in in immediate relief, allowing a hit but striking out two to end the inning. Gabe Speier was next, and he was the only reliever for the Mariners tonight that was responsible for a run. Blue Jays centerfielder Daulton Varsho singled, stole second base, and then smartly advanced to third on a ground out to put himself into scoring position for Toronto. Scott Servais and his staff then called upon Prelander Berroa to make his MLB debut as he looked to get the final out of the inning. Perhaps some debut nerves came into play, as after throwing the first two pitches as strikes, Berroa threw four straight balls including the wild pitch that allowed Varsho to score easily from third.
Berroa struck out Bo Bichette to send us to the bottom of the seventh and was kept in the game by Servais and Seattle but had to be yanked as he walked two of the first three batters that he faced in the top of the eighth. Tayler Saucedo then came in to try and send us to the bottom of the eighth and negate any possible damage, but a single from Whit Merrifield made things scary. Saucedo got Alejandro Kirk (pinch hitting for Varsho) to ground into an excellent double play turned by Eugenio Suarez and Kolten Wong that required Suarez to make an excellent throw across his body. With a hold in place, Paul Sewald walked George Springer in an otherwise clean ninth inning to get the game back to the Mariners offense, where Teoscar Hernandez did his thing.
University of Washington footballs Rome Odunze threw out the ceremonial first pitch ahead of tonight’s game (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Quick notes
The Mariners opened the series against the Blue Jays with a 3-2 walk-off win, their 3rd walk-off win of the season.
Seattle has won its last 5 home matchups against Toronto and 9 of its last 11 games.
Seattle moves above .500 for the 16th time of the season (last: 47-46, July 17)
Teoscar Hernández went 3-for-5, including a walk-off single in the 9th inning…it marked his 4th career walk-off hit (last: 7/16/22 vs. KC w/TOR)
After going 2-for-4 yesterday, Hernández has now had multi-hit games back-to-back 7 times this season.
In his last 41 games, he has hit .271 (42x155) with 9 doubles, 3 triples 7 home runs, 24 RBI, 16 walks and 1 hit-by-pitch.
AJ Pollock 4th doubled in the 7th inning and is now batting .294 (5x17) with 2 runs, 1 double, 1 home run and 2 RBI in his last 5 games (7/4-c).
Mike Ford drove in France for Seattle’s first run with a pinch-hit single to left field.
Over his last 22 games (6/24-c), Ford is batting .338 (22x65) with 5 doubles, 6 home runs, 15 RBI with a 1.079 OPS.
He is 2-for-6 as a pinch hitter.
J.P. Crawford’s sacrifice bunt in the 9th inning was the Mariners 2nd sacrifice bunt of the season…Crawford has recorded both of them (last: April 8 at CLE)
Ty France went 2-for-3 with 1 single, 1 double, 1 run, 1 RBI and 1 walk.
His double drove in Murphy to tie the game in the 8th inning.
The double was the 100th of his career.
Tonight was France’s 25th multi-hit game of the season.
In his 13th start of the season, Bryce Miller allowed 3 hits, 1 run (1 earned run), 1 home run, 6 strikeouts and 2 walks through 5.1 innings pitched.
Over his last 2 starts, Miller allowed the leadoff batter to reach in 6 of 11 innings pitched and none of those leadoff runners came around to score.
It was Miller’s 5th time recording 6 strikeouts and 2nd time recording 6 in under 6.0 innings pitched… 6 strikeouts ties for his 2nd-highest strikeouts thrown (high: 10 on 6/2 @OAK).
Miller didn’t allow a hit through his first 4.1 innings pitched.
The Mariners bullpen combined for 3.2 innings, allowing just 1 run on 3 hits and 4 walks with 5 strikeouts.
Justin Topa pitched 0.2 innings with 1 hit, no walks, and 2 strikeouts.
Gabe Speier pitched 0.2 innings with 1 hit, 1 run (1 earned run), no walks, and 1 strikeout.
Prelander Berroa made his major league debut in the 7th inning… he tossed 0.2 innings with no hits, 3 walks, 1 wild pitch and 1 strikeout.
Berroa is the 3rd pitcher in Mariners history to throw a wild pitch against the first batter he faced in the Majors, joining Bud Black (Sept. 5, 1981 at BOS) and Karl Best (Aug. 19, 1983 at CLE).
He is the 9th player and 7th pitcher to make their MLB debut with the Mariners this season.
Taylor Saucedo pitched 0.2 innings with 1 hit and no walks, while stranding the 2 runners he inherited.
Paul Sewald pitched 1.0 innings with no hits, 1 walk and 1 strikeout.
The Mariners recorded 3 hits on balls fielded by the pitcher, tied for the most they have had in any game during the Statcast era (since 2008).
What’s next?
Following tonight’s storybook ending for the Mariners in this win, Seattle and Toronto continue their series when the two teams return to action in game two of their series, which is the first of two consecutive day games. First pitch for the Saturday, July 22nd game against the Blue Jays is at 1:10PM PST, taking place hours before Taylor Swift plays one of two concerts across the street at T-Mobile Park. The Mariners aim to make it a cruel summer here in Seattle for Toronto, as they’ll have Logan Gilbert on the mound to face off against Blue Jays righty Kevin Gausman. A prime pitching matchup, amidst a sterling Saturday in the city of Seattle is sure to be premier viewing at the ballpark.