Every Star Wars Day (May the Fourth, in case this particular branding hasn’t been pounded into your skull) produces the same opportunity to lay the story of the baseball game over the Star Wars leitmotif. Last year we had an uninspiring 8-1 loss to the Rangers where Zach purposefully trolled by mixing up Stars War and Trek, but ultimately got trolled by the game being so bad no one got particularly mad about it. Maybe the only person he really made mad was staffer Jake Parr, who wrote his own Star Wars-themed recap a week later, repeating a theme of his from 2024 (and 2023!), when he was mad I had the recap on Star Wars Day and neglected to do anything with it, because by this point I have been through so. many. baseball Star Wars Days, while still having only ever seen the original trilogy, and at that only in 20-minute asynchronous increments on my break at the Cineplex Odeon Southcenter Theatre (-tre because we were Fancy).
But sometimes the narrative pull is so strong, and tonight that narrative pull involves a guy named Luke using the force to win (or help win) a baseball game, you just have to throw up your hands, pour a nice [frantic googling sounds] Tarisian Ale, put on some [more frantic googling] Max Rebo Band, and give yourself over to the story being told.
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The story tonight was of two halves. The first half: bad. I will not be making an analogy to a Star Wars Thing here because I don’t want to make anyone mad, but it’s Jar Jar, right? Jar Jar is universally regarded as Bad? Anyway, things got off to a rough start right away, with Logan Gilbert surrendering a homer on the third pitch of the ballgame, a slider that reigning NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin was able to elevate over the right-center wall for a no-doubter. Gilbert said postgame he wasn’t unhappy with his slider, saying he thought they hit some good ones – and he did get two of his four strikeouts on the slider – but that’s also the number of home runs he have up on the slider, and I am not sure that is a tenable ratio going forward.
The other concerning aspect of Gilbert’s outing was how much hard contact he gave up. The Braves finished this game with an xBA of .314, and that was down from the .385 it was earlier in the game while Gilbert was pitching. This is just way too much good stuff, too much in the middle of the plate, especially on the fastball:
So, things could have been worse, for Gilbert, but conversely, they also could have been better for the Mariners. Facing Bainbridge Island-raised JR Ritchie, the Mariners were able to get traffic on against the rookie, pitching in the ballpark he grew up attending as a fan. Ritchie’s command was far from pinpoint, and he only struck out two over five innings, but the Mariners continually shot themselves in the foot with runners on, generally looking like the disconnected, discombobulated mess we’ve come to expect from them offensively over the last week-plus. They hurt themselves at seemingly every opportunity: Braves catcher Sean Murphy, making his first start back after off-season hip surgery, blew both Atlanta’s challenges in the first inning, leading to a leadoff walk for J.P. Crawford, but Josh Naylor lined into an inning-ending double play to kill that momentum. A leadoff infield single by Randy Arozarena in the second, followed by a walk by Luke Raley, similarly went nowhere. A Naylor leadoff single in the fourth was erased by Randy Arozarena immediately grounding into a double play; and then when Dominic Canzone tried to keep the line moving with a single, Raley flew out harmlessly to end the inning.
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The real crushing moment was when the Mariners loaded the bases without a hit with two outs in the fifth – Leo Rivas was hit by a pitch (a fireable offense, says one Brad Adam) and Crawford and Julio Rodríguez each worked walks behind him, but Naylor grounded out easily on the third pitch he saw to end the threat.
That last inning might have been the back-breaker for Logan Gilbert, who did everything he could to hold the Braves’ powerful offense down but lost the battle in the sixth, as all the hard contact he’d given up during the game came home to roost at once. It started with back-to-back solo home runs, first to Ozzie Albies, who smacked a fastball on the plate over the wall; and then another one, to Matt Olson, on one of the aforementioned sliders. Two batters later, Austin Riley, who had been pushed down in the lineup because he is off to such a slow start this season, demolished another fastball on the plate for a 4-0 lead that felt like game over facing the Death Star of Atlanta’s scorching-hot lineup.
But this is Star Wars Day, and the Mariners have a guy named Luke. Ritchie led off the sixth by walking Arozarena on four not particularly close pitches followed by a walk to Dominic Canzone on five pitches, four of which were nowhere close. Atlanta manager Walt Weiss opted to leave Ritchie in to face Luke Raley, who was on an 1-for-24 skid with 11 strikeouts over his past 11 games (and that one was…a questionable ruling). I feel like we’ve all earned this: Luke Used The Force.
After that bit of managerial misconduct, Weiss went out and collected his starter, bringing in Tyler Kinley. Kinley was able to strike out Cole Young, who had a rough game offensively, but walked Mitch Garver on four non-close pitches, something one Brad Adam calls a fireable offense. With two outs, J.P. Crawford came up, battled the count full, and punished a slider of his own:
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Because who else could it be but J.P. Crawford? Author of so many walkoff wins for the Mariners, king of the two-strike hitting, subject of much criticism over this past week for his defense, flipping his bat like a light saber into the dark Seattle night.
The bullpen held it down over the stretch, with José Ferrer pitching in 1.1 innings of work, Eduard Bazardo – maybe the most Star Wars-coded names of the current Mariners – doing his Bazardo thing and hanging another Bazero, and Andrés Muñoz protecting that one-run lead like the Mandalorian protects Grogu (because if there’s a Mariner with Pedro Pascal vibes, it’s definitely Muñoz). The Braves’ last (not new) hope was the dangerous Baldwin, up with a runner on after pinch-hitter Dominic Smith came up with a sharp single on a 98 mph fastball. Baldwin took a called strike on a slider and then chased one, putting himself in an 0-2 hole, but declined to chase a third straight slider. Muñoz went to the slider one more time and Baldwin helpfully hit it to the Mariners’ most surehanded infielder, Cole Young, for an easy 4-3 putout and a losing streak-snapping win. Just like the script said.
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