A Mariners team that has spent much of the season walking a tightrope with a Major League-best 12 one-run wins found out what it’s like to enjoy a night of pure unadulterated celebration Saturday, scoring early and often to beat the Angels 9-0.
J.P. Crawford, Bryce Miller and the aptly-named Ryan Bliss saw to that, with a little bit of help thrown in from some of their friends such as Julio Rodriguez, Luke Raley and Cal Raleigh.
Crawford’s fourth-inning grand slam — which brought home Bliss with one of his three runs for the game — gave the Mariners an early five-run lead from which the Angels never recovered.
Seattle coasted from there to their largest win of the season while also winning for the sixth time in seven games while improving to 33-27 overall and a season-best six games over .500.
The win also kept the Mariners a season-high four games ahead in the American League West.
The nine runs were just shy of a season-best 10, accomplished twice, most recently on May 7 against Minnesota.
And the margin of victory topped an eight-run win earlier this year at Colorado.
The nine-run outburst on nine hits came a day after Seattle dismissed bench coach and offensive coordinator Brant Brown. The Mariners have scored 14 runs in the two games since.
The 24-year-old Bliss, playing in just the fourth game of his career, used his legs to manufacture a run for Seattle in the top of the third, walking to reach first then stealing second — though only after it appeared he was picked off, only to beat the throw to second — and third, then coming home on a single by Rodriguez.
That was one of Rodriguez’s two hits on the night as he continued a recent hot streak with hits in seven of his last eight games.
That, though, was the mere appetizer to what came next as Seattle pulled off the epitome of a “two outs? So what?’’ inning.
With two outs and Mitch Haniger on first with a single, Raley walked on a full count.
Bliss followed and walked on four straight to load the bases.
Crawford fell behind 1-2, then fouled off an 84.9-mile an hour slider to stay alive, then took a slider for a ball.
Angels starting pitcher Reid Detmers then tried to sneak about as slow of a pitch as he has in his arsenal — a curveball timed at 76.3 miles an hour.
Crawford had watched a 76.4-mile an hour curve go by him for a strike in the third inning in an at-bat that ended in a fly out.
Crawford didn’t let it go by this time, clubbing it over the wall in right just minutes after the roof had finished closing.
It was Crawford’s fourth career grand slam but third in the past two seasons, continuing a hot streak with the bases loaded.
Since 2023 Crawford is 13-of-20 with the bags full, with three doubles, a triple and three home runs, good for 34 runs batted in and a staggering 1.941 OPS.
The Mariners then added four more in the sixth, including a leadoff homer from Raley and a two-run double from Raleigh, to make it 9-0.
Among those scoring in the sixth was Bliss, who singled for the first hit of his career, then advanced to second on a Crawford fly out.
Bliss appeared momentarily shaken up after the hard slide into second, but stayed in the game.
That was more than enough to support another strong Mariner pitching outing, specifically what might have been Miller’s best outing since the second game of the season.
The righty allowed three hits and a walk through the first three innings, but didn’t allow a run. He then retired the last 10 batters he faced before departing after six scoreless innings, having struck out nine and lowered his earned run average from 3.48 to 3.18.
Austin Voth, Mike Baumann and Kirby Snead each pitched an inning to finish out the rout.
The win came in front of a happy 39,932 at T-Mobile Park on the team’s annual Pride Day.
The Mariners improved to 10-7-2 in series this year and 11-4 in games this season against the American League West and will go for the series sweep Sunday when righty Luis Castillo (4-6) faces Angel righty Griffin Canning (2-4).
The Mariners will then head to Oakland Monday to begin a six-game trip featuring three against the A’s and then three against Kansas City.