Tonight some friends of mine are marking one year of dating with a celebration at our regular karaoke night where everyone was encouraged to write a love note and put it in a “love box” to be read from in between songs at karaoke – where everyone is, of course, encouraged to sing love songs. I did not get to go to this celebration, because instead I was watching the Mariners play the Tigers, which was definitely not a lovefest. Instead, the game devolved into the Mariners’ first brawl of the season, while also evolving to a 4-2 Mariners win. I don’t have room for 69 Love Songs, but I do have room for nine innings’ worth of love songs.
(I originally thought I’d use only songs from the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs for this recap, but honestly? A lot of those songs that would be thematically appropriate for this game are, unfortunately, filler. So we improvise.)
Love Is Strange
Appropriately enough on Jimothy Night, honoring our local PNW cryptid, tonight’s game was weird. Bryan Woo gave up as many hits as he did hit by pitches (3), which is also how many HBP he had in the entire 2024 season. But Woo also went seven shutout innings, furthering his extreme home-road splits, thanks to the Tigers’ uber-aggressive approach, and was cruising with a low pitch count for most of the game, outside of one inning where the Tigers definitely should have scored and then just…didn’t, thanks to some incredible outfield defense from [checks notes] the Mariners corner infielders? The benches also cleared in this game, although appropriately enough for these two teams no punches were thrown, making it more of an energetic on-field discussion. So yeah. Weird game. Jimothy approves.
Autumn Love
As the sun sets on summer and turns to autumn, it feels like so too is the sun setting on the Mariners’ chances in the division. The vibes today were not great following an 8-0 drubbing by the Tigers last night which many were calling “the worst loss of the season (so far)”. And for the first few innings, it felt like the Mariners were going to continue their offensive somnambulism into this game. It might have been a bullpen game for the Tigers, but Drew Anderson looked plenty capable of putting the Mariners down early, despite some pressure from the new guys in the bottom of the third, as Brendan Donovan and Taylor Ward checked in with back-to-back groundball base hits, unfortunately quickly erased by an inning-ending GIDP from the normally-steady Cole Young. The only other Mariner who got anything off Anderson was Julio Rodríguez, who worked a 1-2 count into a walk to lead off the second (before getting erased on a first-pitch swing GIDP from Josh Naylor) and in the fourth, beat out a two-out infield hit (probably an error) against Colt Keith. That was enough for AJ Hinch, who yanked lefty Tyler Holton out of the ‘pen to face Naylor, who popped out to end the inning. Sometimes love isn’t enough, and this autumn love definitely wasn’t feeling like enough.
In Spite of Ourselves
The Tigers had a good chance to break this game open in the fourth against Bryan Woo, but then…just…didn’t score. It started with Gleyber Torres, leading off the inning, knocking what looked like a sure double off the right field wall, but Dominic Canzone played the ball perfectly on the wall and then uncorked an absolute laser of a throw to keep Torres at first. I apologize Dom, I did not know you Had It Like That.
That limiting of the extra base would prove to be important because Dillon Dingler followed that up with a hit; however, Torres violated the spirit of the Gentleman’s Agreement that governs Randy Arozarena’s third base play and attempted to take third, forcing Randy to do an Effort and throw out Torres at third. That allowed Dingler to second, and then things got a little trickier when Woo grazed Riley Greene with a slider in an 0-2 count, aka the most Unintentional Hit By Pitch Ever (or at least since the third inning, when Woo hit rookie Max Clark with a pitch in a 2-2 count, and Clark dropped his elbow guard into a sinker). Trying to get back into it, Woo sent over a first-pitch sinker on the plate to Colt Keith and Arozarena, not known for sparkling outfield defense, showed that he was still pretty ticked off at the Tigers disrespecting his defense. Only Randy himself gets to do that.
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A very pumped-up Bryan Woo then came back to strike out Spencer Torkelson to end the inning, because we cannot be wasting a night when the MLB video recap for this game has not one but two Randy defense highlights. In spite of themselves, the Mariners went into the back half of this game still knotted at 0-0, sitting on a rainbow.
You Oughta Know (Better than that)
Sometimes hate is just the flip side of love, as Alanis knows, and now Julio. The Mariners finally got on the board in the sixth inning of this game against Tigers reliever Brenan Hanifee, who has the unlucky distinction of having taken Tarik Skubal’s roster spot after he was dealt to the Tigers. Hanifee was brought in to face Randy Arozarena with two outs, replacing lefty Tyler Holton who did not allow a hit over two innings, and Randy promptly greeted him with a double. Then, and this is the part I think AJ Hinch should go to jail for, Hinch instructed Hanifee to intentionally walk Dominic Canzone to get to Julio Rodríguez for a right-on-right battle. Julio…did not take kindly to that.
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Julio saw that sinker on the plate, decided he liked it, and crushed it oppo to give the Mariners a 3-0 lead. Next time Hanifee will know.
The First Ever Time I Saw Your Face (I swung at your first pitch)
First pitch swings were kind of a theme on the night. Bryan Woo had six outs on first-pitch swings from the Tigers tonight. He completed seven innings on just 91 pitches, and the majority of the traffic he faced was self-inflicted (HBPs and a walk). After putting down the threat in the fourth, he had to navigate around a hit by pitch in the fifth and a walk in the sixth (with again, some solid outfield defense from Canzone on a diving catch) before allowing his third and final hit of the day in the seventh: a solid line-drive single from Clark, the rookie. Catcher Eduardo Valencia ran it to a full count, but Woo was able to get out of it with a well-timed GIDP, and he was pumped.
Kiss With A Fist
With the Mariners up 3-0 and Woo having turned in seven strong and a rested bullpen after yesterday’s blowout loss, it felt like this game could be put to bed. Right? Wrong. Gabe Speier came in to work the eighth and got his first two outs before Riley Greene came up. Historians will argue about what happened next. I would say, Speier didn’t have great command tonight and was trying to pitch Greene inside and missing. AJ Hinch would say (ideally from his jail cell) that Speier was intentionally trying to hit Greene after Cal Raleigh had taken 95 to the ribs in the previous inning from reliever Enmanuel De Jesus who – and this part might be important – was only walking 5% of batters at Triple-A this year. Either way, feelings were hurt, and maybe also ribs and thighs, and the benches cleared, and at the end of it Gabe Speier was ejected – he walked off with no argument – and so was Dan Wilson, who had quite a bit more to say about it. We’ll find out if there are any knock-on effects from this tomorrow. Here’s a link to the non-brawl if you wanna see it.
Love You So Bad
The bad news here is that Eduard Bazardo had to come in for Speier, and because this is how things have been going for Bazardo lately, he immediately gave up a two-run bomb to Dillon Dingler to make this game a much closer 3-2. I love you Eduard, even when you’re so, so bad. But please try being good again.
Thirteen (home runs by the end of the season for Colt?)
Colt Emerson might look like he is thirteen years old and as tall as one blueberry, but he has a love of the bright lights. He picked a great time for his eighth (!) home run of the year, a loud, answer-back shot off De Jesus to pad the lead back out to 4-2. Eight home runs already? They grow up so fast!
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(Andrés Muñoz) Is Still The One
Staked to a two-run lead now, Andrés Muñoz came in and obliterated his slate of Tigers hitters, striking out Colt Keith on a nasty changeup, Spencer Torkelson on the slider, and then getting a little help from a nice play from Cole Young (contributing in the field if not at the plate tonight) for a game-ending groundout. It was about as dominant as we’ve seen Muñoz in a while, and a very satisfying end to a weird game. I have to say, I loved it.
I promised you nine love songs and unlike the Mariners, I’d never short you, so here’s one last song and a request for the Mariners for the rest of the season, however it might go. (Mind where you open that for some spicy language.)
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