Luke Raley’s pinch-hit home run lifts Mariners past Giants
SEATTLE – Luke Raley started so hot – relatively speaking – with his power production at the plate that there was bound to be a course correction.
But maybe not to the extreme of the past six weeks.
Between the beginning of June and when Raley arrived at T-Mobile Park on Sunday morning, the lefty had enjoyed the feeling of rounding the bases after hitting a home run only one time. After homering 13 times before the end of May, the absence of the long ball for Raley was one part of the Mariners’ overall power outage the past six weeks.
Perhaps, just perhaps, what happened later Sunday afternoon could be a spark for Raley after providing the decisive blow that gave the Mariners a 6-3 win over the San Francisco Giants before 36,204 fans at T-Mobile.
Raley hit the second pinch-hit home run of his career with two outs in the sixth inning off Giants reliever Adrian Houser. The oft-maligned decisions by manager Dan Wilson to pinch-hit for a better matchup between pitcher and batter worked out glowingly in this case as Raley clubbed an elevated change-up 386 feet into the right-field seats.
“It’s just hard going into a game that’s in full swing, coming in cold off the bench. You haven’t seen any pitches yet and a lot of times you’re getting a nasty bullpen arm,” Raley said. “It’s just one of those things you got to go up with (a) plan.”
The plan for Raley and the M’s this time around worked. Raley’s solo shot snapped a 3-3 tie and Cole Young’s two-run homer an inning later provided the cushion that helped lift the M’s to a series victory and back to the .500 mark at 50-50 with 62 games to go.
Being 100 games into the season and right at .500 feels appropriate for a team that’s underachieved to date, yet still seems to have the best chance of anyone in the AL West to eventually run away with the division.
“We know where we’re at. It’s hasn’t been exactly what we wanted up to this point, but Dan (Wilson) keeps talking about everything’s right in front of us,” M’s starter Logan Gilbert said.
Raley’s last homer came June 11 at Baltimore. The 99 plate appearances Raley had between June 1 and through Saturday produced a .141 batting average, a .217 slugging percentage and a .401 OPS. Not great for someone expected to add some punch to the lineup.
There are plenty of Mariners that need to get going at the plate – particularly slugging the ball – if this team is going to live up to its expectations. Raley, who felt his at-bats were improving going into the All-Star break, is one.
It also helped that Raley saw 17 change-ups in his three at-bats against Logan Webb on Saturday, including 10 in one plate appearance, then spent time Sunday morning in the batting cage working with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer.
“Just trying to come up with a different plan on how to attack them when I’m seeing a whole bunch of them. It was just one of those things – worked on it and actually waited on it,” Raley said.
Raley’s homer was the precursor to Young breaking the game open an inning later. A day after his three-run blast awakened the M’s, Young added a two-run shot off Houser for his 13th of the season.
Young was moved up to third in the batting order for Sunday’s game to give him the chance at additional at-bats. Wise move. He reached base three times and scored twice.
“Cole is one of those guys that has swung the bat well and no matter where we’ve put him,” Wilson said. “That speaks well to him and he keeps it simple. He gets a pitch and he puts a good swing on it.”
Josh Naylor and Weston Wilson also delivered RBI singles as the M’s didn’t just rely on the long ball.
It also helped that Gilbert was overpowering, even if it didn’t look that way early. Gilbert gave up a first-inning solo homer to Bryce Eldridge and a two-out RBI single to Heliot Ramos. But after those bumps, Gilbert was nearly untouchable.
“I think maybe that worked to our advantage in some way. He came out with a little extra fire and really was able to shut them down,” Dan Wilson said.
Gilbert matched his season high with 10 strikeouts, his final one coming in the sixth inning when he blew a 97 mph fastball past Rafael Devers on his 89th pitch. Gilbert also struck out 10 on June 16 against Baltimore. He retired 10 straight after Ramos’ base hit in the first inning and allowed only two other runners to reach base.
Gilbert also accomplished something that hadn’t been done in more than two years: He struck out Luis Arraez twice in a game. Arraez’s last two-strikeout game came July 3, 2024, but Gilbert got him swinging at a change-up in the first inning and a slider in the third.
Gilbert was amused when informed of the note about Arraez. He said getting two strikes is the easier part against Arraez. Finishing him off is the challenge.
“The hard part is with two strikes because he’s so good with two strikes,” Gilbert said. “So just trying to execute a pitch, but man, that’s a crazy stat.”
Arraez gave the Giants the lead with a two-out RBI double in the fifth, but Gilbert’s teammates answered back with Young scoring on Cal Raleigh’s double -play ground out in the bottom of the inning.
Eduard Bazardo and Gabe Speier bridged the seventh and eighth , and Andrés Muñoz picked up his 17th save with a dominant ninth that featured nine pitches, nine strikes and two strikeouts.
“There’s still a ton of work to do, but a good first step here in the second half,” Dan Wilson said.