J.P. Crawford hit two homers, saved the go-ahead run, and then scored the winning run in extras.
The Mariners returned to .500 with a 7-6 win over the Diamondbacks. Randy Arozarena picked up the final knock, lacing a double into the right center gap to score Crawford in the 10th. It was the 13th — and the sixth for extra bases — on what turned out to be a phenomenal day for the Mariners’ lineup. But a sixth-inning implosion another blown save for Andrés Muñoz kept this one close to the very end.
It all started with Crawford, way back in the first inning. He led off and worked a three-ball count, as he does, laying off a nibbling Zac Gallen. Crawford got a fastball up and out over the plate, turned, and launched it into the right field stands.
It’s been a great season for Crawford at the plate. He’s continued to showcase his tremendous eye, and he’s continued to avoid strikeouts. His 0.81 K/BB is top 20 in baseball. But it’s his .179 ISO that really stands out, looking far closer to his excellent 2023 than what we’ve seen the last two season. The (relative) power is back.
In some ways, it never really left. Crawford changed his swing in 2023 and began hitting the ball much harder. He maintained that hard contact in 2024 even as he struggled, and it stuck around for his bounce back season last year, too. The lesser power numbers in either season were more about the angle that contact was going. Last year, most of his hardest hit balls were on the ground. This year, they’re in the air.
We saw that again in the fifth. Jhonny Pereda smoked a groundball single to lead off the inning. Crawford got a changeup down and out over the plate. He crushed the pitch at 104.8 mph and a perfect 27 degrees and sent it 417 feet over the fence in center field.
Crawford is now up to a 121 wRC+ on the season. It wasn’t just the homers that improved his line Friday. In the third, he drew an eight-pitch walk with two outs. That kept the inning alive to bring Julio to the plate. Gallen hung a slider, and Julio hit a missile to left — 113.6 mph at a razor thin 16 degrees:
It was Julio’s 11th homer of 2026 and his ninth in May. It’s the most homers he’s ever hit in a month for his career. It’s not quite his best month ever as a matter of total production; he entered the day with a mere 141 wRC+ (Julio has had some very, very, very good months). But he’s making great contact, hitting the ball hard and in the air, and avoiding strikeouts. Julio also rocketed a 109.2 mph single and 112.3 mph double on Friday to bring his wRC+ up to 126 on the year.
That’s how the Mariners built a comfortable 5-0 lead, setting themselves up to cruise to a fourth win this week. It wasn’t so easy from there.
George Kirby was fine until he wasn’t. He faced the minimum in the first, thanks to a nifty double play turned by Cole Young. He faced the minimum in the second. He worked around a hit and a walk in the third, and he gave up a leadoff homer in the fourth. He got through five inning without too much trouble and holding 5-1 lead.
Then the Diamondbacks stepped to the plate in the sixth. As it happens, this was exactly the start of their third time through the lineup — something Mariners’ pitchers have struggled with this season. Kirby entered the day with a 4.07 FIP on the third pass in 2026, making him the Mariners only somewhat effective pitcher on that split. That wasn’t the case Friday.
Corbin Carroll laced a one-out single. Geraldo Perdomo flared a weak double to left that got tangled where the wall juts out in foul territory. Gabriel Moreno plated them both with a well-hit double to make it 5-3. That was the end of Kirby’s day: 5 1/3 innings, six hits, four strikeouts, one walk, and a fair amount of hard contact allowed. Meh.
Matt Brash replaced Kirby. He was bad. He walked a batter and gave up a sharp single to load the bases, still with one out. He gave up a run on a groundout. He gave up another on a single to tie the game at 5-5. He walked one final batter but finally ended the inning — the 10th batter of the frame — with a strikeout. It was his worst outing of the season, or rather, his first bad one.
The Mariners lead was gone. No matter: Luke Raley stepped to the plate. With his all-or-nothing dial set to “all,” Raley crushed a hanging, middle-middle changeup way out to right field, giving the Mariners a 6-5 lead. He now leads the team with 12 homers.
Then came the tight rope. The Diamondbacks threatened in the seventh with a couple hits, but Eduard Bazardo eventually shut the door. The Diamondbacks threatened in the eight with a double and a walk, but Dan Wilson brought in Gabe Speier to strikeout Carroll — the best left-on-left hitter in baseball — on three pitches.
That got the ball to Muñoz in the ninth with a 6-5 lead. He struggled, as he has several times this year. He gave up a pair of leadoff singles. Then he hit Nolan Arenado really hard in the elbow to load the bases with nobody out; Arenado exited in considerable pain. Muñoz limited the damage, but still gave up a run on a weak roller. He escaped the inning with a blown save and a 6-6 tie.
Cooper Criswell worked the 10th. He got a groundout to move the Manfred man to third. The Mariners infield came in to cut off the run at home. Carroll then smacked a 101.6 mph hopper up the middle. Crawford ranged a step to his left and dove, snared the grounder, popped to his feet, looked the runner back to third, and fired in time to first.
“That’s just a great reaction on his part to glove that ball, to get it and get the throw to first and keep that runner at third,” Dan Wilson said after the game. “I thought that was the turning point in the game there.”
The play kept things tied until the Mariners turn to bat in the 10th. Arozarena stepped to the plate with one out and Crawford on second as the Manfred Man. Juan Morillo go him to two strikes, and he got Arozarena to chase a nasty slider way out of the zone. But Arozarena was on it, driving it hard the into the left-center gap, bringing Crawford around to score the winning run 7-6.
Arozarena said after the game he wasn’t trying to do too much in that spot, just get the ball in play and try to move the runner. He said the team feels relaxed right now, with everyone feeding off each other’s at bats.
“I think this whole team, right now, it’s in a good spot. Everybody’s been working, putting up good at-bats, and even last year, we still had a good team, but I think right now things are just working and clicking.”
For Crawford, scoring the final run was a nice cap for one of his best games as a Mariner. It’s been a weird start to the 2026 season, with his replacement getting a historic contract and eventually a call up. Crawford’s defense has been measurably and observably poor, with talk of a move to third (to this point, it remains just talk). But it’s games like Friday that show why he’s still around. He gets on base, sometimes he slugs, and he’s one of the great clutch performers in team history. He did all those things Friday. The Mariners won.
Read the full article here