Mariners use youth movement to get past Mets for seventh straight win

This spring training, there were two Mariners stories that stood out: Emerson Hancock , who showed up to camp with increased velocity and an expanded arsenal ; and Cole Young, who showcased improvements on both sides of the ball . The question, as it always is in spring, was if those improvements would be sustainable.

Tonight, the calendar freshly turned to June, those two players—along with rookie Colt Emerson (who had his own spring training storyline ) and not-rookies Josh Naylor and Randy Arozarena —combined to deliver the Mariners their seventh straight win, continuing to buoy the team above the .500 mark they’ve so miserably been circling most of this season, as the Mariners defeated the Mets 3-2.

It didn’t necessarily seem that this would be the case. After the Oakland series, the Mariners had lulled some people (not me) into a false sense of security in their ability to perform against left-handed pitching, something that’s been a bête noire for the team all season given the lefty-heavy nature of the roster, the injuries/ineffectiveness of their right-handed options, and the overall stop-and-start nature of an offense that was designed to do damage from top to bottom. That wasn’t the case today as the Mariners hitters struggled against Sean Manaea , making boatloads of quick, weak-contact outs. The only damage against Manaea was a left-on-left home run in the third (technically Manaea’s second inning, as the Mets used an opener because it’s apparently 2016 in the Bronx) by Colt Emerson, his second big-league barrel:

That is just…an objectively beautiful swing from Colt “ the scouting reports love to lie about me ” Emerson.

But one solo home run over six innings will, generally, Not Cut It, even when the person on the mound is Emerson Hancock, spinning another gem. Hancock was very good today, but not perfect, and that not-perfect caught up with him on two solo homers, both in three-ball counts: one game-tying in the fifth and one go-ahead in the sixth (and to Marcus Semien ! Just his second of the year!)

But this feels like damning with faint praise for Hancock, who again was very good, showing off yet another wrinkle in his pitch mix by digging deep in his arsenal to add in his rarely-thrown curveball (he threw six today, after having thrown only 16 all year), dialing up his cutter usage against a lefty-heavy Mets lineup. The north-south movement of the curveball provides a solid counterpoint to Hancock’s more east-west arsenal, such as his cutter, which he was able to spot on both sides of the plate tonight and throw at varying velocities in seemingly any count.

“I think [the cutter] gives you an option early,” said Hancock postgame. “It gives you an option behind in the count, or even late. And I think with that pitch, all my pitches, I’m just trying to be as creative as possible, be able to have as many options as I can.”

But it looked like Hancock was on his way to being a tough-luck loser despite pitching so well – six innings, seven strikeouts, no walks and just the two homers – until the seven inning when the Mets, who have been using Manaea as a swingman, replaced him with Brooks Raley , who loves giving up home runs to Mariners like Josh Naylor loves shoes. Naylor immediately made them pay for that decision, skying a game-tying home run to right field.