HOUSTON -- Julio Rodríguez put on an absolute show during batting practice on Monday evening at Daikin Park, to the point where many who were up close took notice.
And turns out, there was a deliberate point to all those demolished baseballs.
It also had immediate competitive carryover a few hours later, when Rodríguez crushed a 414-foot solo homer during the third inning off Houston’s Peter Lambert.
That one nearly reached the train tracks way beyond left field and helped send Seattle to a 3-1 win -- the club’s eighth straight against its division rivals, which is its longest ever since the Astros joined the American League West in 2013.
And the huge homer all tied back to a pregame confab with an Astros fan, who challenged the Mariners’ star center fielder on whether he could hit a BP homer to a specific spot above Houston’s Crawford Boxes. That display includes 13 billboard-type advertisements that stretch from foul territory all the way beyond straightaway center.
Essentially, it was a closest-to-the-pin-type exercise.
It’s unclear which sign they settled on for the challenge, yet because the ads are massive metallic structures, they reverberate a booming sound any time a ball connects off them. And it made BP on Monday that much louder.
At the end of the pregame back and forth, Rodríguez apparently had the upper hand because he quickly exited the batter’s box, paced toward the first-base dugout -- above which the fan was standing -- and pointed for him to hand over his shoes.
“Hey, I’m a man of my word!” the fan was heard saying while tossing his footwear toward the playing surface.
The shoes themselves? Flip flops.
Once the Mariners were done with BP, Rodríguez returned the sandals to the fan and took a picture with him before first pitch.
"I made him walk up and down the stairs, but then I gave them back to him," Rodríguez said. "I wasn't going to let him walk home like that."
The homer that counted was Rodríguez’s seventh of the season, which was one off Luke Raley’s eight for the team lead. But he also nearly had another solo blast even earlier in the game, when yanking a 365-foot liner that just barely went into the foul-territory side of the Crawford Boxes. It was close enough that Mariners manager Dan Wilson nearly challenged, but ultimately opted not to, then Rodríguez flied out to right.