SEATTLE — This place has been waiting to erupt for 24 long years, way back to when Julio Rodríguez was still in diapers in the Dominican Republic and eons away from his baseball journey that would bring him to the moment that Seattle has been starved for on Saturday night.
And the palpable anticipation was fittingly delivered by the player who’s become a true showman of sports in this city.
Rodríguez emphatically put Seattle on the board with a 413-foot solo homer in the fourth inning that broke a scoreless tie in Game 1 of the American League Division Series vs. the Tigers. He then ripped a game-tying RBI single in the sixth that eventually pushed the game to extras, but the Mariners came up short in a 3-2 loss in the 11th.
“The fans were definitely really loud out there,” Rodríguez said. “They were bringing it. They were really bringing it.”
The homer marked the Mariners’ first run at T-Mobile Park in a postseason game since Game 2 of the AL Championship Series on Oct. 18, 2001 — when Rodríguez’s manager (Dan Wilson) was the team’s catcher and his longtime mentor (Ichiro Suzuki) was that year’s AL MVP.
Rodríguez — who was born on Dec. 29, 2000 — was not even 1 year old at the time. But such are the stakes for a player determined to turn the tides for a franchise whose unflattering playoff history over the past two decades has been rooted in their organizational fabric.
“The way I think about it is, just because we haven’t done it doesn’t mean that we can’t do it,” Rodríguez said recently, in the leadup to the playoffs. “I feel like that’s how I see it, and I feel like that’s at least for myself, and I just hope for the team, too, that we will bring that mentality. Just because somebody hasn’t done it doesn’t mean that we can’t do it.”
The Mariners’ most recent playoff contest in Seattle — the infamous 18-inning marathon in Game 3 of the 2022 ALDS — was a 1-0 loss to the Astros. And unfortunately for them, Saturday’s game featured similar offensive shortcomings, as Rodríguez went 3-for-5 and drove in both of the Mariners’ runs, but the rest of the lineup went a combined 3-for-33.
“Today is over,” Rodríguez said. “Gear up for tomorrow, get ready for the new game. Come with the same mentality, to come and attack and be ready to compete. That’s how we’ll bounce back from this; that’s how we’ve done it in the past.”
On Saturday, Rodríguez connected on a 2-2 fastball from Tigers starter Troy Melton — who was dynamite up to that point — and sent it just to the right of the batter’s eye beyond straightaway center, the type of landing spot that only elite right-handed hitters can reach, leaving his bat at 109.2 mph.
“That’s what we needed,” Mariners third baseman Eugenio Suárez said. “That was a big homer right there, and then we had the momentum.”
The big blast came one week after Rodríguez’s most recent game action, when he achieved his second career 30/30 season upon stealing his 29th and 30th bases before resting in the regular-season finale. He finished the year with 32 homers, tied for his career high set in 2023.
Rodríguez earned his third career All-Star selection this season but opted not to go due to the need for a mental and physical reset. That decision, coincidentally, came in the Mariners’ most recent meeting with the Tigers — a three-game sweep at Comerica Park from July 11-13.
It was that series that represented a turning point to his season, because he homered in all three games then put together one of the sport’s most productive stretches, leading MLB with 3.8 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs, the rest of the way.
Rodríguez had hit 112 career homers entering these playoffs — but Saturday’s was his first in the postseason. The Mariners could certainly use more of them if they’re going to rebound and advance.
