In the first 15 innings of their series with the San Francisco Giants, the Seattle Mariners had only three hits and hadn’t scored a single run. Then a man dressed as a short-spined raccoon beat four people dressed in salmon costumes during the seventh-inning stretch, and everything fell apart for the Giants in a 4-3 extra-inning loss.
The unexpected raccoon victory inspired the Mariners to a three-run rally in the 7th inning, which started when Logan Webb hit Randy Arozarena with a pitch with one out. It was only the Mariners’ third base runner of the game and their second hit batsman. Webb proceeded to issue his first walk of the game to Josh Naylor, on four pitches, before 22-year-old Cole Young hit a three-run homer to tie the game.
Yes the announcer says “unexplicably” in that clip.
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Should the Mariners be allowed to start a second baseman named Cole and a shortstop named Colt? Not if I was the commissioner, but until there’s some common sense in the league office, the home run stands. Webb was pulled one batter later when Luis Arraez committed an error, then Sam Hentges got out of the inning with one pitch when Daniel Susac threw out Luke Raley as he tried to steal second.
Why is there a hunched-over raccoon running during a baseball game? First, you have to understand that the Mariners have a race between four different varieties of salmon during the 7th inning of home games. According to the official Salmon Run page, “four unsuspecting salmon, infused with the caffeinated chemicals of a spilled triple-shot espresso, grew to monstrous size to fulfill their destiny – race for the delight of baseball fans in the Pacific Northwest.”
The biggest salmon is named King, the Sockeye is a grunge salmon who wears flannel and loves Alice In Chains, the Silver salmon is a tech nerd, and Humpy wears an inner tube and usually loses the race.
Then there’s “Jimothy,” a new addition to the race thanks to a video of a young raccoon with an unnaturally short spine went viral this week. The original videographer named the raccoon, and he entered his first Salmon Run Saturday night, much to the dismay of Webb and the Giants.
Things were looking promising before Jimothy showed up. The Giants got home runs from Rafael Devers and Willy Adames in the 6th inning, with Devers’ opposite-field blast confusing everyone on the field, including the umpiring crew, who didn’t realize the ball was pretty clearly a fair ball. Thankfully, some Giants fans in left field began signaling for an official review, and Devers followed suit.
Adames followed two batters later with his own opposite-field shot off Mariners starter Bryan Woo (6 IP, 6H, 3R, 2ER, 7K, 2BB) to make it 3-0. It was Adames second homer in two games and gave the Mariners an upstream battle to catch up.
The Giants offense clocked out after the Adames homer. Their only base runners afterward came on a Heliot Ramos infield single that should have been ruled an error, a free courtesy runner, and an intentional walk to Casey Schmitt so winning pitcher Jose Ferrer (3-1) could strike out Devers in the 10th, his third whiff of the game.
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Dylan Smith (0-2) was the hard-luck loser in the 10th inning after a pretty decent performance from the Giants bullpen. Keaton Winn rescued Hentges in the 8th after Seattle got runners on first and third, hitting Arozarena again along the way. Erik Miller struck out two in a perfect 9th.
But with defensive replacement Victor Robles on second, who scored the winning run without getting an official at-bat, Colt Emerson bunted him to third. After a walk to J.P. Crawford, Rodriguez rebounded from an 0-for-4 start with two strikeouts by delivering a deep fly to left field that walked off the Giants.
It was Rodriguez’s first game back from the injured list, but he decided to wait until the most painful moment possible to get his first RBI.
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The Giants scored their first run thanks to some sloppy Mariners defense. Drew Gilbert grounded a leadoff single into right field, then Luis Arraez hit one in nearly the same place, only to have Young throw the ball away. Somehow, this was also ruled a hit, and now Arraez’s batting title will have an asterisk.
Bryce Eldridge singled to center on a play where Gilbert was going to be held at third before Raley bobbled the ball, giving the Giants their first run and depriving the rookie of an RBI. They couldn’t capitalize further when Schmitt popped out and Devers swung through a 98 MPH fastball.
The Giants broke their three-game win streak, which ties for their longest of the season. Three games! It’s the first time in franchise history that they’ve played 98 games without putting four wins together in a row, going 0-for-6 in their attempts at extending a three-game win streak. This also means that they will become, at the very least, the first Giants team to go 101 games without a four-game winning streak as well.
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The raccoon shook the Giants because they recognized themselves in Jimothy. They’re a desperate, malformed beast of a team, a squad that’s constantly sniffing around in dumpsters, trying to scrounge up a way to save their season. Once, they had Kung Fu Panda. Now, the Giants are simply trash pandas.
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