Role reversal for Mariners as bats pick up pitchers in a big way

CINCINNATI -- Much of the narrative around this era of baseball in Seattle has justifiably centered on the Mariners’ pitching staff constantly picking up the club's bats. Yet on Thursday, it was the complete inverse, which perhaps is a sign of things to come.

Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena ripped back-to-back solo homers in the ninth inning to tie the game at Great American Ball Park after Seattle weathered a gut-punch grand slam the half-inning prior. Then Arozarena returned for an encore in the 10th, opening things up with a two-out two-run double as part of a four-spot that gave closer Andrés Mu?oz breathing room to reach the finish line.

All of that was after the Mariners’ bullpen coughed up five earned runs on five hits and six walks, including the slam from former Mariner Jake Fraley off Eduard Bazardo in the eighth.

When the dust settled, Seattle eked out a tense 11-7 win over the Reds that elevated the club above .500 (10-9) for the first time since its Opening Day victory.

“I've seen everybody with a good attitude, going out there and trying to give their best,” Arozarena said through an interpreter. “I see a bunch of guys that are going out there and giving the best they can to win these games.”

For the second time in only nine days, Arozarena has been at the center of an epic comeback in a game where the Mariners appeared destined for defeat. Last Wednesday vs. Houston, he bookended a late rally with a grand slam in the eighth inning before earning a walk-off walk in the ninth, on a day when Seattle had just two hits going into the penultimate frame.

The Mariners have won six of their past seven games, a span over which the club has tallied an .817 OPS (second best in MLB in this stretch) and scored 44 runs (third most). Their 11 runs on Thursday were a season high.

“When you make good contact, you just feel it in your hands,” Arozarena said. “When I hit that ball [in the ninth], I knew I'd made a good swing. I made good contact with it, and I saw it was going at a good angle. I knew that it was going out.”

Arozarena also scored the Mariners’ first run on Thursday on a two-run homer by Luke Raley after drawing a leadoff walk in the fourth -- which gave starter Emerson Hancock breathing room in his return to Seattle’s rotation as the club awaits George Kirby’s rehab from the injured list.

Hancock’s return was part of a late tweak to the Mariners’ pitching plans, as the club recalled him from Triple-A Tacoma and pushed back Bryan Woo and Logan Gilbert one day each for this weekend’s series in Toronto.

The decision represented a somewhat roll of the dice, given both Cincinnati’s hitter-friendly environment -- which was evident in Thursday’s back-and-forth affair -- and that Hancock could not make it out of the first inning of his last start on March 31.

But aside from a two-run homer in the first inning to Austin Hays, via a middle-middle fastball in a 3-1 count, and the two-out single to Elly De La Cruz that preceded it, Hancock settled in to go scoreless over his final four frames, with just three singles and zero walks the rest of the way.

“Sometimes you get punched, but you've got to get back up,” Hancock said. “You've got to keep fighting, keep chipping away, just go back out there and try to get outs.”

The Reds mounted their comeback primarily against Carlos Vargas (who issued three walks and one run to six batters before being replaced by Trent Thornton in the seventh) and Bazardo (who gave up a one-out single then two more walks to load the bases for Fraley’s slam in the eighth).

But after Raleigh and Arozarena tied the game, Casey Legumina and Mu?oz went scoreless in the ninth and 10th, respectively, to shut the door.

“You don't see too many games like that, where a team can come back from a late blow like we had today,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “That's a special group in there, no question about it. So many good things to talk about.”

The Mariners had a brief injury scare before getting out of town, when Raleigh took a spiked slider from Mu?oz off his neck area and needed to be examined by Wilson and assistant athletic trainer Kevin Orloski. But the backstop remained in the game and said in passing that he was OK.