Naylor becoming heartbeat of lineup as he delivers another big moment

ST. LOUIS -- Josh Naylor didn’t need to follow the flight of the ball. He felt it. Heard it. And for a brief moment, so did everyone else in the stadium.

The crack echoed, Naylor paused, and Busch Stadium went quiet.

Then the ball landed 418 feet away.

Naylor’s no-doubt, go-ahead homer in the sixth inning -- a 107.3 mph drive to right-center -- proved to be the difference in the Mariners’ 3-2 win over the Cardinals on Friday night, snapping Seattle’s eight-game road losing streak.

The swing was the latest in a growing stretch for Naylor, who is quickly becoming the heartbeat of this lineup. Coming off a walk-off hit in Seattle on Wednesday, he again delivered the decisive moment. He finished 1-for-3 with a homer and a walk, but his impact stretched well beyond the box score.

Two innings earlier, Naylor created a run out of almost nothing. After fouling a pitch off his foot and grimacing in the box, he worked a walk, stole second base with a perfectly timed jump and scored on Dominic Canzone’s two-out, opposite-field single.

It was a sequence that captured Naylor’s style: aggressive, instinctive and relentless.

“That’s how he plays the game,” manager Dan Wilson said. “Running the bases hard, great at-bats -- that’s Naylz.”

The stolen base was no surprise. Since joining Seattle on July 24, 2025, Naylor is now 21-for-21 in stolen-base attempts, a reflection of both his instincts and preparation.

Seattle’s offense followed a familiar script with timely hitting, particularly with two outs. Two of the three runs came in those spots, beginning in the second inning when Randy Arozarena hustled out a leadoff double and came around to score on Cole Young’s two-out single up the middle.

St. Louis pulled even in the fourth, capitalizing on a pair of hits to tie the game at 2. It was the only real dent against George Kirby, and even that came with some soft contact mixed in.

Seattle didn’t panic. It didn’t need to. As the game tightened, the Mariners leaned into what they do best.

Kirby worked efficiently into the seventh, allowing two runs on five hits and one walk over 6-plus innings while keeping his pitch count low and staying on the attack.

“Just trying to stay aggressive and keep the game moving,” Kirby said. “Those quick innings help everything.”

When he exited after a leadoff single in the seventh, the bullpen took over in a one-run game, a familiar spot for Seattle.

Matt Brash handled the rest of the seventh cleanly, and the eighth brought the game’s biggest moment outside of Naylor’s homer. After Gabe Speier allowed back-to-back singles and struck out Alec Burleson, Eduard Bazardo entered and induced a ground-ball double play to erase the threat and keep Seattle in front.

It set up Andrés Muñoz in the ninth, and even that wasn’t without tension. A two-out single brought the tying run aboard, but Muñoz stayed on the attack and closed out the win with an emphatic strikeout.

“You look at our bullpen, that’s a big difference-maker,” Wilson said. “We’ve got guys we trust in those spots.”