Mariners and Ty France do it again with comeback win in the 9th

The Mariners just don’t know when to quit. After getting shellacked by the Astros on Friday and Saturday, being outscored 27-4, they broke off back-to-back comeback wins. The first one came against Houston as they avoided the sweep, and they followed it up with another 9th inning comeback, this time against Oakland. Thank you Ty France.

Although it wasn’t just Ty France that was responsible for the win, he easily was the leader of the comeback in both games. The argument can be made that without him, they wouldn’t have happened. We already talked about the Houston game, so let’s focus on the Oakland comeback win.

Ty France did something that no Mariners player has ever done before.

Ty France became the first Mariners player, EVER, to have back-to-back games with a game-tying home run in the 9th inning or later. He was also the first player in the majors to do so since June of 2008 when Hanley Ramirez did it for the Marlins. Think about that. In the ~45 years that the Mariners have been around, no one has done that… not Griffey, A-Rod, Buhner, Sexson, Segui, Beltre, Martinez, Cora, Sorento, Wilson, Buhner, Sojo, Bell, Cameron… okay, I’ll stop. NO ONE.

After Mitch Haniger hit his 29th home run of the season in the 6th to make it 2-2, Matt Olson answered with a solo homer of his own to give the Athletics a 3-2 lead. That would hold until the 9th when Ty France would come to the plate.

He took the 1-1 pitch deep to right-center, pushing it over the wall to tie the game thanks to his 16th home run of the season. The Mariners weren’t done that inning though. Far from it.

Abraham Toro would hit a single, and be followed by a double from Jake Fraley. It seemed as if Oakland was gonna be able to escape after Trivino struck out both Kelenic and Raleigh, but Bauers came through. I’ve been pretty critical of him, but he has been playing well lately. After a long stretch of DNP, he has gone 5-11 over his last five games. He came through here with a two-RBI single to give the Mariners the 5-3 lead.

That would be all that the Mariners needed, as Paul Sewald would come in and shut the door on the Athletics. Facing Gomes, Kemp, and Harrison, he would retire them in order, getting the Mariners the 5-3 victory. This gets the Mariners back to 10 games above .500, and just two games back of Oakland.

They’ll finish up the short series with an early-ish game on Tuesday, with Chris Flexen going up against jerkface (that’s a professional term, right?) Cole Irvin @ 12:37 PM. Best of luck this afternoon to the Mariners as they look to close the gap against the Athletics.