By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – With a 2-1 victory over the Oakland Athletics, the Seattle Mariners would get their fourth consecutive series win. Seattle got some early offense from outfielder Julio Rodriguez, who slammed a first pitch homer in the bottom of the first inning. Robbie Ray went six and two thirds' innings, pitching masterfully until a solo homer by Elvis Andrus. With the win, the Mariners move into second place in the American League West.
Julio Rodriguez hit a first pitch homer to begin the game (Photo Birdzeyeviewvisuals)
Get your tickets to the J-ROD show!
Julio Rodriguez, fresh off of winning back-to-back American League rookie of the month awards for May and June, continues to add on to his first-year resume. Rodriguez was responsible for both of the Seattle runs in this critical series finale, with a solo home run in the bottom of the first and an RBI-double to center, scoring Dylan Moore from first. While third baseman Eugenio Suarez had a multi-hit day, Rodriguez was the one responsible for all of Seatle’s offense.
The 21-year-old outfielder is stacking up the numbers halfway through his first professional season. Let’s go down that list of accolades including leading all position player rookies in baseball by fWAR, at 2.6. Julio ended the month of June leading American league rookies in fWAR, wRC+, hits, runs, home runs, RBI, total bases, and times on base. Finally, we will end with a quick statistic regarding the legendary Ken Griffey Jr.
Today was Julio Rodriguez's 80th career game. How does he stack up to Griffey through his 1st 80 games?
Ken Griffey Jr.'s 1st 80 games: .285/.348/.468 (.816 OPS) 13 HR, 41 RBI, 26 XBH, 11 SB
Julio Rodriguez's 1st 80 games: .277/.337/.483 (.820 OPS), 14 HR, 41 RBI, 32 XBH, 20 SB
Dylan Moore’s single set him up to be scored by Julio Rodriguez’s double (Photo Birdseyeviewvisuals)
Glorious day of Ray
Mariners starter Robbie Ray has been incredible since his June 6th start down in Houston. His performances for Seattle have looked, for lack of better words, like an ace. When he was signed as the Mariners “big name free agent” in the offseason, Seattle fans hoped that he would repeat his 2021 AL Cy Young numbers, and if he can continue his June pace, he very well might. An indication of that is Ray’s 117 strikeouts at the midway point of the season, which is better than his 113 last year at this point.
Ray had a streak of 18 consecutive scoreless innings before it was broken by Elvis Andrus in the 7th inning. Ray has posted an ERA of 0.80 with only nine walks and 40 strikeouts over his last five starts, dating back to the 12th of June. Lastly, Ray becomes the second pitcher in Mariner's history to allow less than three runs with 40 plus strikeouts over a five-game span, joining the great Randy Johnson when he did it from May 28th to June 19th 1997.
Robbie Ray recorded 12 strikeouts on the day (Photo Birdseyeviewvisuals)
Positive momentum
Over the last few weeks, the Mariners have turned things around overall. A disastrous homestand from June 10th through 19th made the situation in Seattle seem dire, but the Mariners have responded since then. A California road trip saw a sweep of the Oakland Athletics, and series win over the Anaheim Angels including a brawl. This past homestand saw the Mariners take series wins against the Orioles and Athletics, going five and two over seven games. Things are trending up for Seattle, and while there are some issues to fix, getting healthy could solve a decent number of problems for the Mariners.
Elvis Andrus’ solo homer gave Oakland it’s only run (Photo Birdseyeviewvisuals)
Quick notes
Today’s ball game took a total of two hours and twenty-eight minutes.
The Mariners have left 592 runners on base this season, the most in baseball. Second place is San Diego, with 575.
Seattle has committed 28 errors this season, the fewest in baseball ahead of San Diego.
The Mariners are the only team in baseball to have five different pitchers record at least five quality starts this season
Julio Rodriguez’s first pitch homer was the 12th instance in franchise history that someone has achieved the feat. Julio joins Ichiro Suzuki, Dustin Ackley, and JP Crawford. Ichiro did it nine times.
Andres Munoz pitched in relief of Ray (Photo Birdseyeviewvisuals)
The Mariners will head to San Diego immediately following their Sunday win over the Athletics. In a sort of bizarre circumstance, Seattle will face the Padres for a two-game series before heading back home to face the Toronto Blue Jays. The first of two games against the Padres has a first pitch of 3:40PM PST.
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