Mariners finish off sweep of Royals and sit alone in first place in the AL West
SEATTLE – When Andres Munoz finished overwhelming the Kansas City Royals, firing 100-mph fastballs and striking out all three hitters he faced in the bottom of the ninth to close out a 3-2 victory over the Royals, the Seattle Mariners stood alone atop the American League West standings for the first time this season.
Unfortunately for the organization and teams of the past, this unfamiliar territory for the better part of the last two decades. The last time Seattle held sole possession of first place in the division was Aug. 24, 2003.
As the Mariners celebrated a three-game sweep of the Royals to improve to 74-56 and a crowd of 38,829 stood and offered raucous applause, the Texas Rangers were still stuck in a postgame malaise, wondering how they no longer leading the division for the first time since May 6.
About 10 minutes before the 27th out was made at T-Mobile Park, the Rangers completed a self-immolation at Target Field in a 13-inning loss that included wasting an early five-run lead, a blown save in the ninth inning and three consecutive walks with two outs to force in the winning run from a pitcher called up on Saturday.
“I was not aware,” manager Scott Servais said. “The last time I looked, it was tied and I said, ‘let’s not even look anymore.’ We have a lot of baseball to go. There’s no question about it. We have played extremely well really since the first of July, and it’s a testament to our players. They just keep their head down and they just focus on getting better. And that’s what we’re doing.”
Indeed, since July 1, the Mariners are 36-14, which is the best record in all of baseball over that span. It’s how Seattle went from 10 games back on June 30 to one game up on August 27. Conversely, the Rangers are 24-24 over that span.
The players weren’t scoreboard watching during the game either.
“I feel like we need to keep controlling what we can control,” Rodriguez said. “We don’t have to worry about (the Rangers). We can’t worry about them. I feel like we’ve just got to focus on all we need to do as a team, as the Mariners and letting everything outside play out how it’s going to play out.”
It’s the mentality that allowed them to reach this point in this season. Why change?
“We just need to focus on what we need to do,” Rodriguez said. “At the end of the season, we’ll see who is standing at the top.”
Facing the Royals for the second time in three starts and having struggled to put them away in the last outing, allowing four runs on nine hits, Luis Castillo made sure it wouldn’t happen again.
The Mariners’ ace delivered a brilliant performance, pitching seven scoreless innings, allowing just one hit with one walk and six strikeouts to improve to 11-7 and lower his overall ERA to 3.01.
The two base runners came in the third inning. Castillo issued a one-out walk to Matt Beaty and then allowed a two-out single to Maikel Garcia.
It brought the Royals’ most dangerous hitter, Bobby Witt Jr., to the plate.
After missing with a first-pitch slider, Castillo came back with the same pitch, getting Witt to roll over on it. It resulted in a ground ball to J.P. Crawford, who flipped the ball to second to end the inning.
Castillo retired the next 12 batters in a row.
The Mariners’ run support came in the form of homers from Teoscar Hernandez and Julio Rodriguez, who are chasing down Cal Raleigh’s team-leading 25 homers.
Hernandez, who hit a pair of homers in Saturday’s win, crushed a solo homer to center in the first inning off Royals starter Alec Marsh. It was his 22nd homer of the season.
Rodriguez crushed a line drive into the bullpen in the sixth inning for a two-run homer. It was his 23rd of the season.
Kansas City made it interesting in the eighth when Nelson Velazquez hit a two-run homer off Gabe Speier. But Justin Topa cleaned up a minor mess, striking out Salvador Perez to the inning and set up Munoz for the ninth.