SEATTLE — The Mariners continued to live on the edge Friday. And if you’re going to do that this far into the homestretch of a divisional race, you’re going to need breaks from absolutely everybody.
Mitch Garver has a World Series ring, earned with the Rangers in 2023 after a dramatic September push that saw Texas clinch its spot in the playoffs on the final day of the regular season — in Seattle. He knows it as well as anybody.
“That’s what championship teams do,” Garver said. “You never know who’s going to do it that night. It could be Cal [Raleigh], it could be Julio [Rodríguez] — those are the usual suspects — but it could be Leo [Rivas]. It could be myself. You never know.”
Manager Dan Wilson played on Seattle’s famous “Refuse to Lose” team in 1995, which overcame a 13-game August hole in the AL West to make the postseason. He knows it, too.
“It takes contributions up and down,” Wilson said. “That’s a really important thing here late in the year, and it’s great to see.”
In Wednesday night’s 13-inning marathon, it was Rivas walking things off with his second career home run. In Thursday’s 12-inning affair, it was Harry Ford doing the same with his first career RBI. And in Friday night’s 2-1 win over the Angels — it was Garver’s turn to come through with the biggest swing in his Mariners tenure.
“That’s baseball,” Garver said. “I’m picking good pitches to hit and trying to hit them as hard as I can. My three outs before that were all one-hoppers to the shortstop. So that last one, I was trying to aim it at the shortstop — and hit it over the fence.”
Garver came to the plate with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning in a game that was tied 1-1 after the Angels scratched a run across in the top of the inning. He started Friday because Raleigh had caught 25 innings in the past two days. Also, the Angels were starting lefty Yusei Kikuchi — and Garver had logged a .267 average and an .885 OPS against southpaws since the All-Star break.
But after Kikuchi finished six innings of one-run ball, the Angels called on right-hander Connor Brogdon; Garver entered the day hitting .170 against righties.
Brogdon started the battle with a called strike on a cutter. Then he threw a 95.8 mph four-seamer down the heart of the plate, and Garver fouled it off, well late.
That put Garver in a two-strike hole.
Garver came into Friday night’s contest hitting 6-for-64 in two-strike counts against righties, with six singles and 41 strikeouts.
Hit No. 7 came on a 95.9 mph four-seamer at the letters, and may have been the most important of his 113 knocks with the Mariners.
Especially on a night where both the Astros and Rangers blew out their respective NL East opponents. Seattle remains in a tie with Houston atop the AL West standings, and has a two-game cushion over Texas for the final Wild Card spot.
“He got a pitch up and the zone that he liked, and he crushed it,” Wilson said. “That’s a big-time home run right there, in a big situation for us.”
The blow came directly after the Angels got their lone run of the night against Luis Castillo, who otherwise gave the Mariners exactly the sort of outing they needed after back-to-back extra-inning slugfests. “The Rock” cleared six scoreless innings on 93 pitches, posting his second consecutive quality start after failing to clear six innings in the four prior to that.
“We really needed it today,” Wilson said. “He’s the veteran, he understands. He stepped up and gave us the six-plus to get us deep enough into this game. Boy, he had good stuff.”
Castillo went back out to begin the seventh, only to leave three pitches in after Luis Rengifo hit a leadoff single. Rengifo came around to score with Carlos Vargas on the mound, but Victor Robles made a leaping grab at the wall in right field to strand two more Angels in scoring position.
That set the table for Gabe Speier to work a clean eighth and Andrés Muñoz to work the ninth for his 35th save of the year, giving the Mariners their seventh straight win at a time they need everything — and everyone — to come together.
“We can feel it,” Garver said. “We’re right there. We know what we’ve got to do to win these games and to win this division. It’s just in our reach, and we’re going to keep going.”
