Mariners Greatest Hits: “Mr. Mariner” Alvin Davis

May 9th, 1986

As I hinted in the last slide, May of 1986 was a record-setting month for Davis, now in his third go-around in the league.

Davis started out that May with an eight-game hit streak, including that aforementioned four-hit duel less than a week before this May 9th game.

Reaching four hits and hitting 1.000 is a great accomplishment, but what he would do on this day made everyone forget about that past hitting clinic.

Seattle Mariners

The Toronto Blue Jays and Davis exchanged runs in the 1st and 2nd with Davis having the upper hand by the 3rd. He hit a three-run blast to put the Mariners ahead 3-1 in the 1st and then followed that up with an RBI single to make it 4-2 in the 2nd.

Davis would be silenced by Blue Jays pitching in the 5th, but his grandest hit of the day was still to come.

In the 7th, with the two American League teams in a tight 5-3 game, Davis stepped to the plate with the bases loaded with Mariners. He would blast the ball into the stands with one of his nine career grand slams, extending the Mariners lead to 9-5.

After a couple more runs crossed the plate for the M’s in the 7th, In the 8th Davis would score his third run of the game via a Gorman Thomas home run.

His two homers that day would amount to his first of only three multi-home run games in his career.

Even more impressive, his eight RBIs in a single game is still a Mariners franchise record. He held sole possession of that record until Mike Blowers drive in eight in May of 1995, and Mike Cameron did it in August of 2001.

In the 1980’s, only seven other men ever hit the eight RBI threshold including Dave Parker, Andrea Dawson, and Eddie Murray.

It was a magnificent day for “Mr. Mariner”, but it wouldn’t be his last. As we would see in the 90’s, Davis would start the next decade off with plenty of stellar days at the plate as well.