The end of the first week of the 2017 Major League Baseball season for the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels was quite a sight. It sent the reeling Mariners to a dreadful 1-6 record and the surging Angels to 5-2.
It was also historic.
The Mariners entered the bottom of the ninth inning with a 9-3 lead. That seems like a sure thing, right? Not this time.
Albert Pujols started things off for the Angels with is 592nd career home run.
Cliff Pennington followed with a walk. C.J. Cron singled and Ben Revere walked.
That would be it for Casey Fien, as Mariners closer Edwin Diaz entered the game. Surely he’d get the job done, right? He did get Danny Espinosa to ground out. That made it 9-5 with runners at the corners and one out. Martin Maldanado would strike out, so the order here was pretty tall for the Angels.
Yunel Escobar would then double and that’s when it started to get very interesting at 9-7 with Kole Calhoun, Mike Trout and Pujols coming next.
Calhoun walked on four pitches. Diaz was falling apart. He walked Trout on four pitches and none were particularly close.
Pujols then delivered a two-RBI single to tie the game, setting the table for Pennington, who “singled” off the right-field wall, plating Trout to win the game.
Final score: Angels 10, Mariners 9. Again, it was 9-3 entering the bottom of the ninth.
Needless to say, this doesn’t happen very often. ESPN Stats and Info reported that teams entering the ninth with a six-plus run lead had won 346 straight games and since 2011, teams leading by six or more runs were 2,529-1. As for the Angels, it’s been quite a while since the franchise pulled off something like this:
The Mariners now head home and that’s gotta be one miserable flight.