5/21/25

(Chicago, IL) Pitching has been incredibly strong for the Seattle Mariners in the first five games of their ten-game road trip but a lack of offense put their backs to the wall in the rubber game against the Chicago White Sox. Before heading to Houston for a huge four-game series, the Mariners had to figure out the offense against the worst team in the American League.

For Seattle, Logan Evans would look to continue his great start to his career especially after a career outing against San Diego. Shane Smith would take the ball for Chicago in a similar spot as Evans. A rookie that has had a tremendous first season thus far and he looked for some rare run support from his lineup.

Mariners 6, White Sox 5 (Game Three)

Shane Smith struggled right from the get-go. He would come out and walk both J.P. Crawford and Jorge Polanco to put the first two runners on base. Julio Rodríguez then did some big damage to capitalize on the early opportunity. J-Rod cashed in a sinker in the middle of the plate and drove it on a line out to center. The ball had enough to just get out for a three-run home run and Julio’s ninth of the season. Three batters in and the Mariners had taken a 3-0 lead.

Chicago got on the board on Tim Elko’s third home run of the season in the 3rd to make it 3-1 and the ball continued to fly out of Rate Field. In the bottom of the 4th Chicago powered their way back into the game. After Matt Thaiss reached on a bloop single, Logan Evans came back to strikeout Luis Robert Jr. before falling apart a bit. Lenyn Sosa would pull his hands inside for a changeup that was in off the plate and powered it out for his fourth home run to momentarily tie the game. Two pitches later, Joshua Palacios did the same thing to a fastball for his second of the season. Back-to-back blasts put Chicago out in front, 4-3.

Shane Smith actually settled in nicely and pitched five innings. As soon as he left, Seattle would tie the game back up. Leading off the inning, Cal Raleigh would welcome lefty Brandon Eisert with a long ball. Cal sent his 16th home run to left to tie Aaron Judge for the American League lead in homers while also tying the game at 4-4.

Seattle left the bases loaded in the top of the 7th after Randy Arozarena struck out against Jordan Leasure and in the home half Chicago didn’t waste their opportunity. Casey Legumina was on to pitch the inning and an error by Dylan Moore put Tim Elko on with one out. Josh Rojas walked to move Elko into scoring position for the red-hot Chase Meidroth. He would get jammed and pushed a grounder just inside the bag down the first base line. Elko would come around to score and Chicago grabbed the late lead 5-4. Legumina would then punch out Miguel Vargas and Matt Thaiss to keep it a one-run deficit.

Mike Vasil would come on for the top of the 8th for Chicago and faced Rowdy Tellez to begin the inning. Tellez would send a base hit to left and the new left fielder Michael A. Taylor misplayed the ball, allowing it to get to the wall and Tellez to move up to second to put the tying run in scoring position with nobody out. Leo Rivas came on to run for Tellez while Leody Taveras came to the plate. It would be a first for Taveras when he jumped on a first pitch changeup and sent it out to right center for his first home run as a Mariner. More importantly, the two-run blast put the M’s back in front, 6-5.

Andrés Muñoz would look to take the MLB lead in saves with his opportunity at #16 in the 9th. Andrew Vaughn put some pressure on him with a leadoff single to bring the winning run to the plate. Tim Elko would be the first out on a fly ball to Julio in center before Edger Quero popped out to Miles Mastrobuoni at third. Muñoz slammed the door as Chase Meidroth grounded out to Leo Rivas at second who stepped on second for the final out. The sloppy series still was a series win for the Mariners as they took the finale 6-5.

Notable Performances

Mariners

White Sox

• Lenyn Sosa- 1-4, HR, 2 RBI, R
• Tim Elko- 1-4, HR, RBI, 2 R
• Shane Smith (ND)- 5 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 SO

What’s Next

While it wasn’t a clean series win, the Seattle Mariners (28-20) did take their seventh consecutive road series by taking two out of three from the White Sox. To make that even better, Houston lost two out of three to Tampa Bay while Texas is looking to avoid the sweep against the New York Yankees this morning. Los Angeles is also looking to complete the four-game sweep over the Athletics today as well. Seattle leads the AL West by 3.5 games over Houston, four games over Texas, five games ahead of Los Angeles, and seven games ahead of the Athletics.

With the series win along with the Houston series loss, the four-game series for the Mariners with the Astros has a little bit more room for error. A split would not be a negative now but a series win for the Mariners would put them in complete control of the division and continue to build separation from the rest of the pack. Seattle took two out of three from Houston (25-24), back in April that really got Seattle headed in a positive direction. However, every game was close and decided by a single run so the margin between the two teams is not much. The good news for the Mariners is that rotation reinforcements are here as George Kirby will make his season debut in the opener on Thursday.

Yordan Alvarez will not play in this series due to a nagging hand injury that has forced him to miss more time than expected. Of course the rotation is still hit and miss for Houston but Seattle will miss Houston’s best starter in Hunter Brown this series. Framber Valdez has seemed to turn the corner for the Astros. The lefty seems to face the Mariners every time the two teams meet and he shutdown the Mariners when he faced them back in April, going six scoreless innings and only allowing two hits. In his last three starts, he has gone at least seven innings throwing 22 innings total and only allowing four runs on 15 hits with four walks and 22 strikeouts. Fortunately for the M’s he will match up with Bryan Woo on Saturday afternoon.

• Game 1, Thursday 5:10pm- George Kirby (Season Debut) vs. Lance McCullers Jr. (0-1, 7.88 ERA)
• Game 2, Friday 5:10pm- Emerson Hancock (1-2, 6.21 ERA) vs. Ryan Gusto (3-2, 4.65 ERA)
• Game 3, Saturday 1:10pm- Bryan Woo (5-1, 2.65 ERA) vs. Framber Valdez (3-4, 3.57 ERA)
• Game 4, Sunday 11:10am- Luis Castillo (4-3, 3.20 ERA) vs. TBD

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