SEATTLE -- They say every team wins 50 and loses 50 in any given Major League season, and it’s what you do with the other 62 that differentiate the contenders from pretenders.
Well, the Mariners (50-50) have now achieved both of those marks in the win-loss column after Sunday afternoon’s 6-3 victory over the Giants -- doing so in exactly their 100th game.
For a team that’s been looking to get on a run -- a real run, of multiple weeks and not a series here and there -- they are now entering the decisive stretch, especially with the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline looming.
After that, virtually all of the good teams will get better -- perhaps even the Mariners, who certainly have specific needs.
“We know where we're at,” said Logan Gilbert, who racked up a season-high-tying 10 strikeouts. “It hasn't been exactly what we wanted up to this point. But, as [manager Dan Wilson] keeps talking about, everything is right in front of us.”
On a picturesque Pacific Northwest afternoon on Sunday, Seattle played small ball early then went for the jugular with big power late, finally putting the game away for good in the seventh inning on a two-run homer from Cole Young.
Moved up to the lineup’s No. 3 spot for the first time all season, the 22-year-old second baseman went yard for the second day in a row, after crushing a game-tying shot in Saturday’s win. That followed a pinch-hit solo blast from Luke Raley in the sixth that gave them their first lead of the day and one they wouldn’t relinquish.
Those big flies helped Gilbert overcome three earned runs in an otherwise dominant outing, in which he cleared the sixth inning for the seventh straight start.
And the high-leverage arms held it down the rest of the way, for the second straight day going scoreless, capped by Andrés Muñoz’s 17th save.
“In a one-run game or a tie game, these guys are nails,” Wilson said. “But you give them a little extra lead? They're going to make you pay.”
The way that the Mariners won each of the past two days offered more promise for what might be to come -- with the caveat, as it’s been all season, that it’s only a stretch of a few days rather than weeks.
On Sunday, Gilbert put them in a two-run hole in the first inning, but the offense answered in the fourth, by capitalizing on each 90-foot increment.
Randy Arozarena reached second base on a fielding error that could’ve been a groundout, then scored on a Josh Naylor chipped single. Naylor then swiped his 19th bag, positioning him to score on a two-out, up-the-middle knock from Weston Wilson.
The Giants then took a 3-2 lead, but the Mariners re-tied the game primarily via consecutive singles from Young and Arozarena to lead off the fifth. With those runners on the corners and no outs, Cal Raleigh hit into a double play that scored Young.
It wasn’t pretty, and was probably frustrating for Raleigh, who went 0-for-10 in the series. But the moment underscored what traffic and contact can do.
On Saturday, Julio Rodríguez ripped a walk-off sacrifice fly in his return from a two-week absence due to a concussion, after Young delivered one of the team’s more emotional homers of the season that tied the game in the seventh.
That late-innings mojo helped jumpstart this post-All-Star-break weekend, after they suffered a 7-0 loss on Friday in which they looked lifeless.
“It's pretty clear that we haven't put it all together,” Raley said. “But we know it's there, and we know how we can play. We've seen flashes of it. But the consistency hasn't been there. And I think we all believe that it'll show up.”
The Giants (42-57) are having one of the sport’s most disappointing seasons despite being stacked with talent. This is precisely the type of opponent that Seattle needs to stack wins against over these final 10 weeks.
Up next are the Reds (45-53), who sit in last place in the NL Central and are reportedly open for business at the Deadline. They present another prime opportunity for the Mariners to take another step forward.
Because after that, a huge road trip looms, maybe the Mariners’ most monumental of the season so far. They go to Texas (50-49), which holds a half-game lead over Seattle atop the American League West after losing on Sunday in Atlanta. Then it’s to Dodger Stadium to face the two-time defending champs.