Last season, the Seattle Mariners struck out a major league-worst 1,625 times, an average of 10 per game.
Perhaps if they had put the ball in play a few more times, they wouldn’t have missed the postseason by a single game.
Entering Wednesday afternoon’s home game against the New York Yankees, the Mariners have modest gains in that department, down to 8.7 strikeouts per game to rank 10th in the majors.
Credit Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez, the team’s senior director of hitting strategy, and new hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, for helping change the mindset.
One of their biggest disciples has been shortstop J.P. Crawford, who batted a career-low .202 last season.
Through a quarter of the 2025 campaign, Crawford is hitting .271 — just below his career high of .273 set in 2021.
Granted, Crawford struck out three times Tuesday night but he came up big when it counted most. He hit a single down the left-field line in the 11th inning to give the Mariners a 2-1 victory against New York that snapped their season-high, four-game losing streak.
“It was good to get a bat on it after I didn’t earlier,” Crawford said on the postgame show on Root Sports.
It was the first time the Yankees lost in a game started by Max Fried this season.
“Every win is a big win, but tonight was big for us to get back on track,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “Nothing has wavered from how we approach things, but to see it pay off in an extra-inning setting … it’s good to get results from that.”
While the Mariners scored just once off the unbeaten Fried — Julio Rodriguez led off the fourth inning with a single and Cal Raleigh followed with an RBI double off the center-field wall — they forced him to throw 91 pitches before being relieved after just five innings.
“It was a grind for (Fried). I thought that (his) stuff was fine and thought that they pressured him well,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He had that five-pitch first inning but then I thought they just took a lot of tough at-bats against him, made him work. They spoiled a lot of pitches and neutralized his breaking ball a little bit with some good swings.”
The Yankees tied it in the ninth against Mariners closer Andres Munoz.
But New York went 0-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base.
The Yankees were without third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, who suffered a fractured left ankle sliding home in the ninth inning of Monday’s 11-5 victory at T-Mobile Park.
Boone said Cabrera avoided emergency surgery and flew back to New York, where he was scheduled to see a specialist Wednesday to determine the next steps.
“If and when they do surgery, they’ll go in there and get a better idea when they’re in there of what’s needed, and then we’ll see,” Boone said when asked how long Cabrera might be out.
Wednesday afternoon’s series finale is scheduled to feature a pair of right-handers in the Yankees’ Will Warren (2-2, 4.75 ERA) and the Mariners’ Luis Castillo (3-3, 3.95). Warren will be facing the Mariners for the first time; Castillo is 1-3 with a 2.95 ERA in six career starts against the Yankees.
–Field Level Media
