The Mariners and Julio Rodríguez needed a momentum shift. They may have gotten it in New York

Last year, it might have been Mitch Haniger, then the Mariners’ longest-tenured player. Or later in the season, maybe Carlos Santana, who only spent a few months in Seattle after coming over at the deadline but who arrived with postseason experience and the personality to command a clubhouse while serving as a conduit from the coaches.

Both those guys are gone now, leaving behind a young team in Seattle with plenty of dynamic potential and players who could get there eventually, but no current clear leader in the locker room.

So when the Mariners lost a lackluster game to a short-handed Yankees club to fall to 35-37 and 10 back in the division, it wasn’t a player who finally decided enough was enough.

It was Mariners manager Scott Servais.

They eked out just three runs across the first two games of a series this week in the Bronx, indicative of an offense that was 29th out of 30 teams in batting average, 20th in runs scored, and seemingly never got a big hit at the right time.

So Servais called a team meeting to express his frustration with what he considered non-competitive performances. The tone was stern. Some four-letter words were used.

“I think you've only got two or three bullets to fire throughout the course of the year,” Servais said the next afternoon about taking that kind of step to explicitly chastise his players. “I thought it was time to fire a bullet. I don't know. I don't know if it's going to resonate. You never know. We could go out tonight and do nothing again. But shame on me for not trying.”

That night, the Mariners scored 10 runs. A rookie starter, the team’s consistent strength last year and this one, no-hit the Yankees into the sixth inning. They won easily.

Seattle had magical 2022 behind Rodríguez

There’s a tendency in baseball to view the outcome of one-run games as kind of fluky. Sure, it’s the results that ultimately matter, but run differential is believed to be more reflective of true talent. Winning a bunch of games by just one run can seem like your team is a bad bounce or an untimely gust of wind away from having lost a bunch of games.

But winning close games is a hell of a lot more fun than losing them. And even if there isn’t science or stats to support this, having fun is helpful when it comes to surviving the six-month slog of slumps and streaks, bumps and bruises, mistakes and missed opportunities that constitutes even the best baseball seasons.

On June 20 last year, the Mariners were 29-39. Ten games under .500, 13 back of the division-leading Houston Astros, eight back of the newly added third wild card spot. And playing in their 21st season since the team had last made the postseason. Then they won five in a row. A few weeks later, 14 in a row. There was a brawl in Anaheim that bonded the young club. The Mariners went 61-33 the rest of the season to end the drought and bring playoff baseball back to Seattle.

Ten of those wins were walk-offs (one, in particular, was even more memorable than most). Over the course of the whole season, the 2022 Mariners had nearly twice as many comeback wins as they did blown leads. They won 13 walk-offs and lost only three. They were .607 in one-run games. Instead of fluky, it felt charmed. They weren’t the best team in Major League Baseball, but they had something special brewing.

“Some things came together for us at the right time and that's what you need to get hot. Confidence grows with young players when you start winning games maybe you shouldn't win,” Servais said. “You win those close games, everybody feels like they had a hand in it. It helps.”

And every time they needed a big hit in a clutch situation, budding superstar Julio Rodríguez seemed to come through. He slugged .556 with runners on base, .518 in situations that Baseball Reference considers “late and close.” The 14-game win streak took the team right up to the All-Star break, which proved to be JRod’s ascension to the national stage. A month later, the team committed potentially record-setting money to Rodríguez and he committed to spend most if not all of his career in Seattle. In the span of less than a season, he had gone from slow start to the dynamic face of a franchise whose future looked bright in the glow of his megawatt smile. When the Mariners lost the divisional series to the eventual champion Astros in perhaps the hardest-fought sweep of all time, the postgame clubhouse was bittersweet and full of optimism. A month after that, Rodríguez was named the American League Rookie of the Year. They were young and this was just the beginning.

Where did Seattle's close wins go?

On June 20, 2023, the Mariners opened a three-game series against the Yankees. They arrived in New York 35-35, nine games back of the division-leading Texas Rangers, three out of a wild card spot. The standings compared to last year should have given them hope that the deficit was surmountable. And yet, it was hard to shake the sense that, around the clubhouse, the season was already slipping into disappointment.

“I feel like we’re getting the hits, we’re getting the good pitching. But we're not, you know, getting the big ones,” said catcher Cal Raleigh, who had become a hero in his sophomore season.

It feels like they’re not getting clutch hits or winning those close games because they’re not. The Mariners’ winning percentage in one-run games this year is just .364, .400 in extra-inning games. They’ve already had as many walk-off losses as they did all last season, and have just two walk-off wins. And when they’ve needed him most, Rodríguez has come up short, slugging under .400 with runners on base and just .262 when the game is “late and close.”

On a macro level, Rodríguez has been a bit better than league average. But if you’re looking for statistical evidence of pressing at the plate, it might look like this: The league average for swinging at the first pitch of an at bat is 29.5%. Rodríguez has always been more aggressive than that, but this year he’s offering at 42.2% of first pitches.

“You don’t ever want to take players’ aggression away from them. That’s what makes him good,” Servais said. “Certainly, it’s what makes Julio special. But there are times seeing another pitch or two might be beneficial.”

He turned 22 in the offseason, and by the time he returned to Seattle a giant JRod mural had sprung up just outside the ballpark.

“It's hard, you know, the second year coming in and being the guy with so much hype,” Raleigh said of his superstar teammate. “So it's not easy for sure. Everybody knows who you are now.”

What Thursday night win in New York meant

I asked Servais if maybe what happened is this: Even the Mariners players who are only about as old as the drought itself felt like last year was the culmination of a long, slow climb. It ended just as things were getting good but with a clear sense that they would be back. They believed themselves to be better than a division series sweep and 2023 would be their chance to prove that. But, as is true for all teams, they showed up on Opening Day only to find themselves back at the bottom of the mountain — months away from where they feel like they left off — and without the sense that simply making the playoffs would be a heady accomplishment.

“It’s so true,” Servais said. “Everybody wants to just jump in; just get us back to that point. Whoa, you gotta earn it. You have to really earn it.”

Like Julio himself, the Mariners are finding that even the best rookie campaigns and magical seasons give way to a league that has adjusted around you — whether it’s in how you’re pitched at the plate or the expectations on a team.

“And you think OK, we went through those growing pains and maybe we don't have to go through again, and then quickly realize you do have to go through again, which isn't fun,” Servais said. “But yeah, the expectations are just a little bit different. And you know, we haven't handled them that well.”

“Everything’s so magnified in the big leagues,” Raleigh said. “Especially when there’s expectations and there does need to be a sense of urgency.”

The Mariners’ big win on Thursday night was offset in the standings by having dropped the first two in New York. And as clubhouse attendants packed bags with teal Ms on them for the flight to Baltimore, a new set of luggage was already waiting to be unloaded. On Friday, the Yankees welcome the Texas Rangers. A non-factor the last few seasons, suddenly it’s the ascendant Rangers leading an American League West Division that has gotten a lot more crowded at the top.

Rodríguez was 1-for-5 in the victory, fine if not really a full breakout. But that doesn’t matter when you’re facing down a happy flight and leaving with a coveted souvenir. A clubbie brings Rodríguez an Aaron Judge jersey signed by the 2022 AL MVP himself with a note commending Julio on the start of his career and about how much is still to come. Rodríguez is giddy about it, he seems genuinely gobsmacked even though just last month he did the same, sending Judge one of his jerseys when the Yankees came to Seattle. Such is the paradox of JRod: He is already one of the most famous players in the game, this would be his first disappointing season if it goes that way.

But maybe it won’t. He considers whether Servais’ invective the night before was what motivated the team to double-digit runs and struggles to land on an answer.

“In a way, yes. But at the same time, I feel like this is a really good team,” Rodríguez says. “Literally, we know the team that we are, things are just not happening.”

I tell him the bit about being back at the bottom of the mountain, and wonder whether the momentum is gone. But he says he understands that nothing is guaranteed, they came back ready to put the work in again.

“Last year was last year. This year brings new challenges and things we will need to overcome as a team,” Rodríguez says. “And I feel like we still got time. I feel like we showed a really good sign today. And I know I know the team that we have, we can carry that on.”