SEATTLE -- Nothing about it was easy. Nothing really has been so far this season for the Mariners.
But Seattle white-knuckled its way to a 7-6 win over the D-backs on Friday to open its three-game interleague set, stretching its winning streak to four games thanks to a walk-off double in the 10th inning by Randy Arozarena.
"Just a huge moment, huge excitement,” manager Dan Wilson said. “You could feel the energy in that ballpark, it was outstanding.”
It’s been a long slog back to .500 from Seattle -- the Mariners hadn’t been there since April 29 when they were 16-16, before J.P. Crawford jogged home on Arozarena’s slash the other way off a Juan Morillo slider on Friday night.
A lot has gone wrong along the way. The top two hitters in Seattle’s Opening Day lineup -- last year’s breakout star in Cal Raleigh and its prized offseason acquisition in Brendan Donovan -- are on the IL and likely to remain there for at least a couple more weeks. The bullpen has gone through its own injury issues, while the rotation situation has led to drama of a different variety.
But now, the Mariners, who came into the season with higher aspirations than possibly any year previously in franchise history, are a win away from getting above .500 for the first time since they were 3-2 one game into the second series of the year.
"I come in every day and all these guys are getting prepared, putting in their work to try to do work,” Arozarena said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “But in baseball there’s ups and downs. Sometimes things go your way, sometimes they don’t. Right now, things are going our way. You saw in the last series how well this offense can play, and today we were able to get a couple hits and get the win.”
Coming home after sweeping the A’s and vaulting into first place in the AL West, the Mariners felt as good as they have all season. Then they mashed four home runs -- two by J.P. Crawford and one each from Julio Rodríguez and Luke Raley.
That should have been a recipe for an easy win. Instead, a packed house at T-Mobile Park was treated to a stress test, as the Mariners blew a 5-1 lead in the sixth inning, then gave up a one-run lead in the top of the ninth.
But Cooper Criswell pitched a clean 10th, thanks in large part to a diving play by Crawford to snag a 101.6 mph grounder off the bat of Corbin Carroll with the tying run on third base and the infield drawn in.
“That’s just a great play,” Wilson said. “That’s J.P. He comes up big in the big moments.”
Then in the bottom of the frame, Arozarena came to the plate with one out and two on against Morillo and got the one non-homer hit the Mariners needed.
“I wasn’t trying to just swing for the fences and hit a home run like I felt like I was doing last year,” Arozarena said. “I was just trying to make contact with it and bring somebody in.”
Raley drilled his team-leading 12th homer of the season into the seats in right field in the bottom of the sixth inning, right after George Kirby and Matt Brash combined to allow four runs in the top of the frame.
Crawford led off the bottom of the first with a solo shot off Zac Gallen, then got him again in the fifth inning with a 417-foot shot out to center field -- his longest homer since April 27, 2025 -- for his first career multihomer game.
Rodríguez, meanwhile, blasted his ninth home run of May in the bottom of the third, setting a new career high for homers in a month. He also hit a double down the left-field line in the seventh inning as part of a three-hit night -- his third of 2026.
No. 11 on the season for Rodríguez was a laser that left his bat at 113.6 mph -- his highest exit velocity of the year and third highest of his career on a homer -- and a launch angle of just 16 degrees, the lowest on a home run at T-Mobile Park since Houston’s Yordan Alvarez on Sept. 27, 2023.
"I don’t know if I’ve seen a ball that low go out of this ballpark, and it cleared the bullpen,” Wilson said. “That ball was just hit a ton, on a line. His double later was also hit hard. He just continues to swing the bat well.”