A Grip on Sports: The Mariners did the unexpected over the weekend and, for once, that was a good thing

A GRIP ON SPORTS • July is starting just like we thought it would. Except in one way.

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• The heat is (somewhat) on in the Spokane area. The high temperatures have been hitting the 80s, which is nearly perfect considering 90s are quite possible this time of year. And, as happens around the area when June saunters off the stage, the clouds seem to disappear as our humidity drops.

Other expectations met include weird loud noises in the late afternoon (are M-80s still a thing?), the occasional firework booms in the evening (even as the local fire departments make impassioned pleas to forgo such things) and the smell of barbecue wafts through the neighborhood (making our mouth water).

The one thing we didn’t expect the first weekend of July? The M’s showing some life, as they opened baseball’s decision month with two wins over the Rays, who sport the game’s best record.

How the heck did that happen?

The first win, Saturday, was normal. After all, George Kirby gives the M’s a chance every time he takes the mound. If Seattle can score a few runs – they put up eight that day – for him, they are just fine.

But yesterday’s rally was as unexpected as it was welcome.

Luis Castillo, who found out before the game he was the team’s lone representative to next week’s All-Star game in T-Mobile, hasn’t been sharp recently. But much of the damage Tampa did Sunday is hard to lay on his shoulders. He pitched OK. The ball had eyes at times, the fielders acted as if they had grease on their fingers others and the Rays had six runs (and a 6-1 leas) before the top of the third was done.

Game over, right? Surprisingly, no.

“Guys care,” manager Scott Servais told reporters Sunday after the Mariners had rallied for a 7-6 victory. “I do know they care. And they care a lot more than maybe some other people think.”

Has anyone actually thought that? That the M’s don’t care? Wow. That would be stupid. In fact, our issue, shared in this space more than once, is they may care too much. They knew what was possible this season. And when it didn’t start the way they thought, pressing seemed to be part of their collective issues.

“This is a resilient group. We don’t give up,” Julio Rodriguez also told the media. “There’s probably a lot of people out there who think we should or that we’re done or whatever. But that’s not what we think every time we step on the field. And I feel like this group is going to stay like that. We’re going to keep fighting, no matter what you throw at us.”

What the Rays threw Sunday were a lot of hittable pitches. Tom Murphy even connected with one, driving it over the wall in the sixth, tying the score at six. But an unhittable pitch with the bases loaded in the seventh decided it, as Jason Adam’s fastball rode into Jose Caballero’s ribs, giving the M’s their final run.

Castillo finished like the all-star he’s been the last three seasons, the bullpen threw three shutout innings and Seattle is 40-42, five games out of the final wild card spot.

• We always find it fun to check the baseball standings this time of year. The disparity in games played, records, the bad and the good, such things stand out.

Take, for example, the M’s. Seattle has played 82 games, a little more than half its schedule. No one in the American League have played fewer. In contrast, Tampa has played 87. That’s a lot of open dates the Rays will have the final three months.

Two teams, Kansas City and Oakland, are playing historically bad baseball. Each have won fewer than 3 of 10 games.

And the A’s have been outscored by 237 runs thus far, nearly three a game. That’s tops in the big leagues by almost a hundred runs.

It’s expansion New York Mets territory, the bellwether for awfulness over the years. Actually, it’s more than a half-run-per-game worse.

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WSU: Around the Pac-12 and the nation, we can pass along a notebook filled with Oregon State brickbat. … And we can add this look at Oregon’s upcoming season. … The United States team at FIBA’s U19 championships didn’t even medal. We blame Colorado’s Tad Boyle, the head coach, or Arizona’s Kylan Boswell, one of the players. Just kidding.

Kraken: Kailer Yamamoto is coming home. Well, sort of. The Spokane product, who played for the Chiefs, signed with Seattle yesterday, giving the Kraken its first Washington-born player. … Shane Wright didn’t have to be at the developmental camp this week. He came anyway. … Eduard Sale was there too. But the Kraken’s first pick in the recent NHL draft didn’t feel he did well.

Indians: A three-run home run by Juan Guerrero helped lift Spokane to an 8-6 win at Vancouver and salvaged one game of the six-game series. Dave Nichols has more in this story.

Sonics: It happened 15 years ago Sunday. The Sonics left town for Oklahoma City. It seems like only yesterday.

Storm: Seattle followed a familiar script Sunday and had a familiar result. The Storm fell 81-66 to the visiting Liberty and Breanna Stewart.

Golf: The U.S. Women’s Open will be played this week at Pebble Beach. Why does it feel like the biggest golf tournament of the summer? Rose Zhang, maybe.

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• Before we leave you today, we have to share this Sally Jenkins story in the Washington Post. It is about two of the greatest tennis players of all time, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. It’s not about their tennis rivalry. Well, it isn’t about that exclusively. It covers the best rivalry in the women’s game over the past century in depth. But it’s really about the friendship that grew from the rivalry, despite the hardships of being the two best players in the world. And how that friendship still lives today. It’s a beautiful story perfectly framed and superbly written. … Maybe it will fill the hole you’ll have tomorrow as we take the day off to celebrate our nation’s birthday. Instead of firing off explosives, we do it by walking in the woods somewhere. That’s what we see as the most appropriate way. Until later …