Cal Raleigh does his best Buster Posey impression Bryan Woo does his best Greg Maddux Mariners win 8-0 over Red Sox…
Mariners beat Red Sox on both sides of the ball.
After a poor offensive showing by the top of the order last night, Cal Raleigh wasn’t willing to let another opportunity slip by.
Last night, Raleigh struck out with the bases loaded to end the third inning. It would be a pivotal moment in a game where the Mariners had a handful of run-scoring opportunities, and failed to make anything of them.
“Yesterday was definitely frustrating for everybody,” acknowledged Raleigh postgame. “We had plenty of opportunities. But you’ve just got to flush it and come ready to go the next day, that kind of everyday mentality. Sometimes you’re going to get kicked in the butt, and you’ve just got to show up the next day and forget about it.”
“Everyday is a new day.”
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It sure was. Tonight, faced with the same situation, Raleigh was ready, jumping all over a first-pitch changeup from Red Sox starter Walker Buehler for his league-leading 27th home run of the season, and fourth career grand slam.
However, some credit must be given to the way the Mariners got their first run there. Rowdy Tellez led off the inning with a line-drive single, then took advantage of Buehler’s command issues to sneakily steal the fifth base of his career. Let us bask in its glory:
Cole Young, who had a nice game himself with a pair of hits and a walk, doubled Tellez home for the first run of the game, hitting the ball into the right field gap with authority and narrowly missing his first big-league home run (and my opportunity to point out that this is the anniversary of a minor-league Ken Griffey Jr.’s first hit and professional home run). If only the Mariners had been playing at one of the league’s four tinier stadiums. (Ok, three, and the weirdly-dimensioned Comerica.)
But it was Cal who provided the big blast, and then again in the fourth, this time with a two-run double that scored Young, on base again with a hit, and J.P. Crawford, who had singled and stolen second. That opened up the game with the Mariners leading 7-0 (or rather, the Mariners 1, Cal Raleigh 6), but Cal wasn’t done yet: he meanly swiped third base off new pitcher Zack Kelly, and then scored the eighth run of the game on a Jorge Polanco sac fly. With that steal, Cal Raleigh moves into sole possession of first place for steals by a Mariners catcher, surpassing his manager Dan Wilson.
“I should have went like Rickey Henderson,” joked Cal postgame, miming holding up the base, a la Henderson after he set the stolen bases record.
It might not be Rickey, but it could be Johnny, or Buster: Cal is the first catcher with three hits, a grand slam, and a stolen base in a game since Buster Posey did it on June 19, 2015 (you know that it was making Alex Mayer’s brain itch that Posey couldn’t have done it two days sooner).
Posey also wasn’t tasked with catching a shutout, nor a near-Maddux, as Bryan Woo went seven strong innings of six-strikeout, one-hit, no-run ball, and the rest of the bullpen (Casey Legumina and Andrés Muñoz, getting in some much-needed work after being off the past eight days) held the line, each striking out two more hitters to bring the days’ total to an Adrian Monk-approved 10 Ks. That’s slightly more than the four strikeouts produced by the five pitchers Posey caught as the Giants scraped past the Dodgers thanks to Posey’s slam.
No worries about a Red Sox comeback in this one, as Woo navigated with ease through the young Red Sox lineup, bringing along a slight wrinkle with his changeup, which he used as his most frequently-used secondary tonight, using it for both weak-contact outs and for swinging strikes.
What’s wild is this might not have even been Woo’s best night. He walked two hitters, and hit a batter (a mistake pitch to Toro in a two-strike count in the first inning). He wasn’t especially effective with first-pitch strikes, and got into a few longer battles with hitters—the sinker was not missing many bats tonight. None of it stung him, but he did allow some hard contact, although Marcelo Meyer accounted for a lot of that, with three balls hit 101+ mph off Woo, including the hardest-hit ball of the game, a 108.7 mph single that was also the only hit Woo gave up. These are the kinds of nits one can pick with a performance like tonight’s, because that’s just how good Woo is; he is great enough to not have to be perfect, as much as he’d like to be.
The Mariners have been hurt this year by failing to play in tandem, with weak offensive performances canceling out strong pitching performances, or bullpen meltdowns undoing solid offensive production. Tonight, one day removed from one of these lopsided losses, they played a complete game thanks to star-level performances from their starting battery and solid contributions from a supporting cast. Every day is a new day.
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