Mariners earn their Culinary Arts degree, construct 5-4 win over Angels

A croque madame is probably one of the best sandwiches on the planet. Fine ham, toasty bread, rich béchamel (or even a mornay if you’re a brazen little fox) and a fried egg? For breakfast? One of the truest blessings that France has delivered to the modern world.

Tonight, though, the Pacific Northwest was instead treated to our own blessing of France, the croque monsieur himself, as the Mariners won 5-4 over the loathsome and fish-less Angels. The Mariners improved to 32-27 and built on their lead in the AL West. They will enter June with a 4-game lead over the Texas Rangers and a 6.5-game lead over the Houston Astros (booooooo).

It’s important to realize that in the process of winning tonight, the Mariners also, in a way, if you think about it, built a perfect croque monsiuer of their own.

The Bread

In a croque monsieur, the most important element, from a construction standpoint, at least, is the bread (and I’d argue that construction is the name of the game when it comes to a sandwich – take that away and now we’re just talking about a savory panzanella). It, ideally, holds everything in place, provides the main texture of the sandwich, and also offers its own flavor. Brioche is standard, but in a country where the high-quality brioche of Paris is unavailable, I find a good homemade sourdough loaf to be the best option. Sourdough can also take a heavier dousing of béchamel, if the day calls for it.

Tonight’s sourdough, of course, was the big first inning. The M’s laid a solid foundation for the game, earning three runs for their starter early. They took advantage of a shaky start from Angels starter José Soriano, and before long, J.P. Crawford’s double, Josh Rojas’ double, and Julio’s walk loaded the bases for Cal Raleigh.

Off the bat, I thought we were in for a Beef Boy Deluxe, but we were satiated with a Beef Boy Sacrifice Fly for our first run of the game. Then, our parfait petit golden retriever, Ty France, delivered his first blessing, as he baked a perfect two-run loaf of sourdough:

Bread: Done. Early lead for your excellent pitching staff to work with: Secured.

It was promising to see solid at-bats across the board from the M’s early, especially as their notably poor performance has drawn attention and sent heads rolling. This lead to a very cruise-y first six and a half innings of baseball.

The Cheese

Salty, melty, fatty, generally delicious – I probably don’t need to sell you on cheese. But our choice of cheese(s) here for our sandwich is important. We want to make sure we get all of those aforementioned qualities in the right proportion, without sacrificing too much of the others. A great blend, for example, would be about 60% medium-age gruyere, for a nutty, almost sweet flavor, 30% emmental cheese for extra meltiness and creaminess, and 10% extra-aged parmesan, for sharpness, salt, and more nuttiness.

However, the most crucial thing when it comes to cheese-ing your croque – you must fight the temptation to use too much. Cheese is a good thing, so surely, more is better, yes?

No! Over-cheesing will lead to an unbalanced sandwich, especially considering what’s still to come. Additionally, too much cheese can cause you grievous injury in the future (or, at least, too much time spent in bed later that day in the fetal position as your stomach throws a révolution).

Bryan Woo masterfully blended his pitches as if carefully grating and weighing cheese for his instructor in a Parisian culinary academy. As always, Woo dominated the zone with his two fastballs: he threw his four-seamer 60% of the time and his gnarly sinker another 25% of the time. He accumulated only two strikeouts, a low total for him, but he also gave up no walks on the night despite some at-times shaky command.

His parmesan, the 15% of combined slider, sweeper and changeup, all offered appropriate counterpoint to his two fastballs, serving to keep batters just a little bit off the fast stuff. He could probably afford to get comfier throwing them all a little bit more at some point going forward, but hey, if it works, it works, and right now, it’s working – the two-seamer generated a 41% CSW% (called strike + whiff percentage).

What dominated the conversation, though, was the decision to pull Woo after 6 scoreless innings, where he gave up only three hits, after just 66 pitches. The displeasure from fans was palpable and the Discourse unpalatable, especially given the disaster of a 7th inning- Saucedo gave up a pinch-hit grand slam to Jo Adell to tie the game at 4.

“[Woo]’s going through some things, obviously, arm stuff,” Servais said postgame. “You have to listen to your players and stay in tune with them…Everybody wants to get caught up in the pitch count – I don’t care. We’re trying to take care of our guys. We’re trying to do something special here.

“What drives our train is our starting pitching, we can’t ever forget that. We’ve gotta keep these guys healthy, we need them for the entire season.”

Woo seemed to agree.

“I think it was a grindy stretch with a couple five-days in between starts, flight right after a pretty exhausting start in Washington, it was hot and taxing. Just kind of the way it went this week…Nothing I’m concerned about going forward,” Woo said. “I’m definitely looking forward to having an extra off day in between a couple of starts here in the future.”

Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Woo and Servais showed restraint – hopefully this approach will save everyone some future pain and protect Woo’s arm. It’s worth noting, too, that the Mariners have spent the last three seasons or so as the beneficiaries of exceptional starting pitching “luck” – maybe there’s more to it than that.

The Ham

The ham in a monsieur is, for some folks, a “meh” component. Take it or leave it, ultimately. It’s nice, it’s meat (for the non-veg folks) and provides some umami flavor, but what does it bring that isn’t covered by something else? There’s plenty of salt in this sandwich, plenty of fat, plenty of umami. Who needs it?

That’s precisely why Cal Raleigh’s framing is the ham of tonight’s sandwich. Often overlooked as a skill (and one that might be disappearing soon once the robo-strike zone takes hold), framing nevertheless has a significant impact on the game. Stealing a strike, or losing one, can swing the balance in a pivotal at-bat. Whether this is a good thing or not is an entirely different matter.

At the end of the day, though, Raleigh is a good framer. Baseball Savant has him as the second-most valuable framer in the league, behind only Jose Trevino. Tonight, Raleigh’s framing was on display, winning a lot of pitches on the edges as well as a couple that were outright off the plate, aiding his pitchers when they couldn’t quite deliver.

The Béchamel

Okay, well, now it’s time to be honest. I said all that nice shit about the bread and whatever, but there’s one reason we all love a croque – it’s mother sauce #1, the star of the show – it’s the béchamel.

It’s what we all think of when we dream of a croque. It’s the most defining characteristic. It’s what makes a good ham and cheese sando into something transcendental. It’s a no-doubter, hall of fame-type sandwich inclusion. Please name a sandwich component, on any sandwich, better than the béchamel on a croque.

And it’s a no-doubter that the continued resurgence of Good Ty France is our sauce here. In the ninth inning, after already delivering two RBIs, France decided he was not quite done playing the part of conquérant, and threw up a casual bat flip after ripping a hanging changeup nearly into the bleachers:

That’s a homer in 30/30 parks, a perfect piece of hitting, the money shot, and certainly what we will remember this game by.

Servais appreciated the hard work that France put in this offseason.

“We saw [the best version of Ty France] tonight, the whole display. Hits some balls to the opposite field, top of the fence, base hit to right, then catches a changeup out front for a home run, that is vintage Ty France.”

Photo by Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

After initially looking the part of a phenomenon when he first came over in 2020, it’s no secret that France has struggled in the last couple of years with inconsistency and a lack of power output. If France can once again deliver at the plate, it will go a long way to stabilizing and lengthening a struggling Mariners lineup.

This game, though at times tough to swallow, was an exercise in patience, and proof that good things will come to those who wait, and bad things will come to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. More five-run games out of this offense, paired with a stellar rotation, would mean that there’s a good chance the Mariners will bring the playoffs back to Seattle.

Bonus: Fried Egg

Some of you may be more croque madame people – if so, your delicious fried egg on top is Muñoz ending the game on a pickoff, uncovering previously-unmeasured levels of Washedness from Kevin Pillar.