Montes' prep for clutch HR at Coors? PlayStation, of course

DENVER -- Lazaro Montes delivered the ultimate Coors Field special on Friday night.

And it saved the Mariners from letting another winnable game slip away.

The massive rookie slugger demolished a solo homer into the second deck beyond right field that put Seattle back in front and led to a 5-4 win over the Rockies. And it could not have come at a more opportune time, as Montes stepped in as the first batter in the top of the ninth inning.

“I wasn’t calm,” Montes said. “I was angry.”

Three innings after the Mariners coughed away a lead they held since the top of the first, Montes dug out a low-and-in breaking ball from reliever Jordan Romano -- into the lefty loop zone -- and yanked it a Statcast-projected 426 feet, with a bat speed of 84.8 mph and exit velocity of 107.6 mph. And it quite literally left the bleachers, chopping into the tunnel leading to the concourse.

Yes, its sky-high trajectory was probably aided by altitude. But there’s little doubt that this one big swing would’ve yielded the same result in any of the sport’s 30 ballparks.

“He was looking for a pitch he could drive, looking for a pitch that he could hit out of the ballpark, and he did,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “I thought he just executed that whole at-bat extremely well. He hit it a long way, and it came at a time when we really needed it.”

It was Montes' fourth homer since joining the Mariners as a September callup, and none of them have been cheapies.

There was the 407-foot shot to straightaway center at Fenway Park in his debut on Sept. 1. Then the 430-foot moonshot to the left-center-field berm last Friday at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.

And in between, the 474-foot blast on Sept. 8 that reached territory at T-Mobile Park that most believe no one else has.

These all came after he crushed 38 earlier this season at Double-A Arkansas and Triple-A Tacoma, which at the time, were the second most in the Minors.

With that baseline, Montes was easily the one Mariners hitter that most had penciled to do something slug-worthy this weekend.

"I think we were looking forward to batting practice, for sure,” Wilson joked.

Montes, too, knew of the ballpark’s reputation as the sport’s most hitter-friendly -- for its cavernous outfield, but more so, how baseballs carry in Colorado’s thin air at high altitude.

“I played this before on the PlayStation,” Montes said, “so I was just like, I've had fun before here and tried to do the same thing that I do on the PlayStation here.”

Montes put the punctuating finishing touches to the Mariners’ comeback, but it was his fellow callup -- and best friend -- who re-tied the game at a critical stage.

That’d be Michael Arroyo, who pinch-hit for Brock Rodden to lead off the seventh inning, when the Rockies summoned lefty reliever Brennan Bernadino. Arroyo then pounced on the very first pitch for a 99.5 mph double down the left-field line, advancing to third base on a sacrifice bunt from J.P. Crawford and scoring on a sacrifice fly from Dominic Canzone.

Montes is the Mariners’ No. 5 prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 54 overall, while Arroyo is Nos. 3 and 43, respectively.

They are a big part of the organization’s long-term plans, but the hope was that it’d be toward a playoff push for this final stretch. Instead, their outlook is more toward building for 2027.

“It's valuable experience, no question,” Wilson said. “You're getting a chance to play here at the end of the season, getting some at-bats, getting in those kinds of situations where they're big at-bats. And I thought both those guys swung the bat extremely well tonight.”

Arroyo hasn’t played much -- just four starts in the team’s 11 games since he was selected -- but that’s largely been due to a lack of positional runway. The club has trepidation for his arm at third base, and the other two spots -- left field and second base -- are occupied by Randy Arozarena and Cole Young.

Arroyo moved to second base after coming off the bench, which shifted Young to shortstop. But after a few defensive lapses from Young, Arroyo was then pulled in the ninth for Weston Wilson, who took over at third.

With a 72-82 record, the Mariners’ season is on life support -- and they entered this weekend’s series with a legitimate possibility of elimination as soon as Sunday. But with Houston’s loss to Atlanta, Seattle is now five games back of first place in the American League West with eight to play.