The Ro Show: Josh Rojas provides key insurance runs as Mariners defeat Rangers, 7-5

Because the 2024 Mariners Refuse To Be Normal, what looked like a comfortable 7-1 win over the Rangers became a stressful affair in the ninth inning before Ryne Stanek, who had no business having to be in this game, got Corey Seager, the tying run at the plate, to plant a ball like a kiss in first baseman Tyler Locklear’s glove for the final out of the game. I appreciate the commitment to the bit, not so much the constant lake of cortisol in which the 2024 Mariners force me to swim. Forget Chaos Ball, this is Beta Blocker Ball.

“It’s never easy,” said Scott Servais postgame. “Our guys don’t expect it to be.”

Honestly, things got off to a weird start right away in this one, with the normally walk-stingy Kirby walking Marcus Semien on seven pitches, but Kirby came back to get three weak-contact outs, each on his secondary pitches: a soft flyout from Corey Seager on the splitter, an easy groundout from Adolis García on the slider that held Semien at second, and a weak chop on the curveball by Nathanael Lowe that Locklear nabbed neatly at first base. Not the most dominant start, but something to build on.

The Mariners then did what they don’t often do this year and helped their starter out by getting on the board right away against Nathan Eovaldi, electrifying the packed house (43,448 fans in attendance) at T-Mobile Park. For the second day in a row, J.P. Crawford made solid contact (100.8 EV) on the first pitch he saw but right at a defender. However, Josh Rojas got something started out of the two-hole, working a full count that led to a walk. Julio Rodríguez then smoked a single up the middle (always a good sign!), capitalizing on a pitch in the middle of the plate, which brought the speedy Rojas to third. Cal Raleigh pounced on a first-pitch splitter that wound up in his current lefty loop zone to bring home the first run of the day, and also stole second during Mitch Garver’s at-bat. Perhaps the new hair does make him more aerodynamic.

After going down quietly in the second, the top of the lineup applied the pressure again, with Rojas working a one-out walk, his second of the game. Julio then sent a cutter in the upper-middle of the plate to hang out with some new friends in the ‘pen at a cool 106.4 mph, making the score 3-0. I love Eovaldi’s reaction here the instant the ball comes off the bat.

Raleigh and Garver then each worked walks to keep the pressure on Eovaldi, struggling some with his command, as Dominic Canzone brought home the fourth run of the game, going after a first-pitch splitter on the outside edge and managing to shoot it (101.1 mph) through the hole at shortstop.

“With our staff, you get a couple run lead, it feels like you’re up by a million” said Josh Rojas postgame.

For the second day in a row, the Rangers went to their bullpen early, this time summoning Brock Burke, who put the Mariners down without a fight in the fourth and fifth innings. Meanwhile, Kirby had a pair of stressful innings in his and fifth innings. He managed to work around trouble in the fourth after issuing a one-out infield base hit to García, who stole second during pesky hot rodent boyfriend Wyatt Langford’s at-bat, who came up with an infield hit and then stole second himself. With runners at second and third, Kirby went to yet another full count against Travis Jankowski but managed to punch him out on a half-swing on a slider—one of the rare two-strike whiffs Kirby got on the slider today (he got just three whiffs on the 24 sliders he threw, and just seven swings on the pitch overall). If you can call this a swing.

The Rangers finally clawed a run off Kirby in the fifth. Ezequiel Duran bunted for a base hit, and Kirby unwisely attempted to field the bunt, throwing it past his rookie first baseman to put a runner on second with one out. One out later, Kirby had Semien in an 0-2 count but Semien worked it two 2-2, forcing Kirby onto the plate and hitting the first extra-base hit and the first ball hit over 100 mph for the Rangers (104.2 mph), lasering a ground ball double down the line for the Rangers’ first run of the day.

Perhaps that was the level of pissed-off Kirby needed, because he came back in the sixth and struck out the side on 14 pitches, getting the Rangers to expand the zone on his heater—something he was successful at doing all day. Trent Thornton then pitched in another strong inning, setting down the Rangers 1-2-3 in the seventh. Thornton also got the first out in the seventh, getting catcher Andrew Knizner—filling in for catcher Jonah Heim, who is out on paternity leave—to line out before giving up a line-drive single to Marcus Semien. Scott Servais, who had joked pregame that he was counting on Tayler Saucedo to face Corey Seager, then called on Saucedo to do just that: it only took one pitch for Sauce to induce an inning-ending groundout double play off the bat of Seager, keeping him once again mercifully quiet in this series.

Meanwhile, the Mariners kept stacking runs against the Rangers bullpen, something that would turn out to be crucial in the ninth inning. In the seventh, Josh Rojas homered in an 0-2 count to stretch the lead to 5-1:

And in the eighth, it was the Ro Show again, with Rojas delivering another clutch two-out RBI, this time with the bases loaded. Rojas—who had already walked twice in the game, two of the eight walks the Mariners took today—worked another full count, forcing Rangers reliever Jesus Tinoco to come over the plate, and he did not miss what he got, a slider in the fat part of the plate.

But aside from the hits, Rojas was equally happy with his two-walk performance. “That’s exactly where I want to be,” he said postgame. “Sometimes when I hit a slump I try to swing my way out of it and I start to chase a little bit, swing at everything. But when I can get the timing down and I can take close pitches, that’s when I know I’m getting closer to where I want to be.”

With the Mariners up a seemingly-comfortable 7-1, Scott Servais called on Eduard Bazardo to try to save Ryne Stanek from having to work a second straight day. Working through the middle of the lineup, Bazardo allowed four of five batters to reach on singles, somehow miraculously only allowing one run to score and getting two outs before the Rangers brought up Josh Smith as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded. Bazardo walked him on four straight pitches, walking in a run and turning over the lineup, forcing Servais to bring in Stanek anyway for one unnecessarily high-stress out. Stanek got Semien in a 1-2 count before giving up a bloop base hit to score two more and making this game an uncomfortably, unnecessarily close 7-5. Thankfully, that’s where it would stay, as Seager went after a 3-1 pitch, a splitter at the bottom of the zone, grounding it out to Tyler Locklear at first, who made a nice play.

Rojas, for his part, was never in doubt. “That’s kind of how it feels as a team right now. Hey, we go up early, it’s kind of our ballgame.”

The Mariners! They can’t make it easy on us. As someone who also has a flair for the dramatic I must grudgingly appreciate it. I’d normally close up here with something like blah blah seems like the bats are turning it around, but I’ve typed that sentence 20ish times in recaps this year and the bats are yet to show the kind of consistency that will allow me to stop buying Tension Tamer tea in bulk (even with the eight walks, they still struck out 14 times today). However, the Mariners did secure a series win against the Rangers today, and the Astros got drubbed by the Tigers, so I’ll sleep a little easier tonight, at least—maybe with Josh Rojas’s words ringing through my ears.

Bonus content:

While interviewing Josh Rojas postgame, Julio—not content to try to just take the infielders’ jobs, apparently—stopped by to get in a question of his own. Honestly, not anything that would be out of place at any scrum.