Starting in centerfield for what is all but assuredly his penultimate game with the Seattle Mariners, Randy Arozarena carried Randyland with him once again. I wonder what goes through his mind.
I often wonder this, in fairness, whether it’s while hopscotching away from 2-0 pitches, filling out a bingo card as he rounds the bases on a big fly, or trotting into the corner, following a Gentleman’s Double™️. What does the kid from Cuba, later choosing Mexico to represent in the World Baseball Classic, think of home?
Arozarena is the defining player for the Mariners this year. A star in search of a solar system. Not bright enough alone, nor gravitationally engrossing to draw adherence from his compatriots, but just shy. The Kyle Seager of Mantua.
I wonder what Arozarena must have thought of his flanking companions. To his left, the field’s right, his erstwhile countryman. Lazaro Montes, gifted with the physicality Randy lacked and was overlooked for accordingly time and time again. A child, yet a fellow father in a foreign land. No player who has made the journey that Montes or Arozarena have can claim life to be comfortable, but Montes brings a joi de vivre few from any rearing can muster. A bilingual titan at 21, if he were not so muscle-bound, Montes might be a diplomat-to-be. Montes went 1-3 with a walk and clubbed a RBI double for the game’s first run. Arozarena’s compatriot in right has just one more night to absorb the wisdom and the perspective of his elder. For one night, Arozarena was nearer for Montes than he may ever be again.
The compact, quixotic Cuban from the Pintar del Rio region, the westernmost tip of an island famed for its participation in this nation’s pastime and resistance to its sphere of influence on all other fronts. Arozarena excelled as a youth in his father’s sport before pursuing the first choice of his homeland. His younger brother maintained the family commitment to soccer, but Arozarena must have known the path to prominence lay on the path of Tony Oliva and not the pitch.
Did Michael Arroyo know the same? His homeland of Colombia is no stranger to baseball brilliance, but Edgar Rentería taught the country to consider baseball mere decades ago, while Valderrama, Falcao, and James would be names familiar to every child. And yet, he chose baseball, faithful to his family’s favorite sport in defiance of his country, more Raiko Arozarena than Randy.
A month ago, when the season rested on a hopeful bed of nails, Arroyo arrived briefly in the M’s clubhouse. Arozarena welcomed him, with gifts of gear and good nature. Perhaps he saw a slice of his younger brother to his right as he glanced to left field tonight. Both hitters shone tonight as they have at every opportunity this year, Arozarena 2-5 with a double, Arroyo a clean 3-5.
They filled the bases for Seattle on a night things seemed easy, then crushingly grim, then smooth again. The M’s leapt out to a 4-0 lead before fear filled their hearts, as southpaw Kade Anderson wore a 104-mph-hued friendship bracelet he did not request from Angels INF Christian Moore. Though initially maintained after his fourth-inning exit, and mercifully deemed safe with merely bruising, Anderson’s exit beckoned the better natures of the rest of the Mariners.
José Ferrer wore the shame of pitching in front of this defense again one last time, and decided to stitch his own patch upon it. Facing the first real threat from Anaheim all day, he hurtled a ball wide, then watched as a single to center became a multi run mess thanks to a credited error to Arozarena that more accurately was an on target throw with a short hop which Cal Raleigh couldn’t corral. Ball after ball testing the infield yielded runs, and it seemed certain that Seattle and it’s beleaguered bullpen would cede the night to fate.
Instead, a glimpse of another world. A better world. A world of safe surprises and risks rewarded. A world of world where Taylor Ward finally has a big moment for his new club, lashing a two-run single to drive in Arroyo and Cole Young. A world where J.P. Crawford follows with a two-run smash off a southpaw to double the lead and double up on Anaheim. A world that could be ours, without too much trouble and a few turns of the calendar pages. A world where the Mariners win 8-4 and it’s meaningful, like every day in this world is to Randy, to Lazaro, to Michael Arroyo, to Kade Anderson.
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