Defeat of Yankees Marks Mariners' Wackiest Win of 2022
A great pitching matchup drew a huge crowd at T- Mobile Park, and fans across the country tuned in to watch the Yankees play the Mariners on Tuesday night.
Seattle held New York to just three hits, silencing the big bats in front of a near sellout crowd. The only issue was: the Mariners only got seven hits themselves, and only five came before the bottom of the 13th inning.
Luis Castillo was dominant in his debut at T-Mobile Park, throwing 8.0 sparkling innings and getting a standing ovation as he walked off the field. His counterpart Gerrit Cole was just as good, hurling 7.0 innings of four-hit, shutout ball.
It was a battle of the bullpens after that and both sides came to play. Andrés Muñoz struck out the side in dominant fashion in the ninth to fill out regulation, while Clay Holmes and Aroldis Chapman matched him on the other side to send things to extras scoreless.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Paul Sewald came on in the 10th and immediately walked the leadoff batter. Andrew Benintendi then took off for third before Sewald broke into his subsequent windup, forcing him into a rundown and a tag, essentially running the Yankees out of the frame.
The Mariners failed to walk things off again, so Matt Festa came on in relief in the 11th. The Yankees proceeded to run themselves out of the inning. Again.
But despite being gifted yet another opportunity to win, the Mariners offense once again failed to push a run across, bringing on Matt Brash out of their paper-thin bullpen in the 12th. Brash has seen better results as of late, but his rookie campaign as a whole has been turbulent at times. This outing was particularly chaotic, but it worked out for Seattle's young righty in the end, thanks in large part to his glove.
A tremendous play by Brash on a comebacker and the Yankees running themselves out of a third consecutive inning set up another chance for the Mariners to win in the bottom half of the 12th.
Seattle was able to move the automatic runner over to third and eventually loaded the bases, but Eugenio Suárez struck out to end the inning and promptly snapped his bat over his left knee. On to the 13th.
Brash came on for a second inning, looking to keep the Yankees off the scoreboard for yet another inning. After loading the bases by issuing a pair of walks (one intentional), the rookie came back to strikeout Gleyber Torres and induced an inning-ending groundout off the bat of Miguel Andújar.
The Yankees never recorded a hit after Castillo left the ballgame in the eighth.
In the bottom of the 13th, the Mariners faced an issue; they had to kill the designated hitter in order to put Mitch Haniger in right field after Carlos Santana pinch-hit for Jarred Kelenic in the 11th. That meant Brash was due up fourth in the inning and both Jesse Winker (back spasms) and Kyle Lewis (undefined) were presumably unavailable, eventually leading manager Scott Servais to unload his bench and send backup catcher Luis Torrens to the batter's box with one out and the bases loaded.
Torrens, the man who is likely on his way out of Seattle once deadline acquisition Curt Casali completes his rehab assignment, came through in the biggest of ways. Torrens delivered a single to right, and Aaron Goldsmith delivered the call of the year.
