The Mariners are 5 games under.500 and going nowhere in the AL West, but somebody forgot to tell Randy Arozarena. Through the first 12 innings of Seattle's series at Fenway, he's put together 5 hits and 7 RBIs against a Red Sox team that's clawing for a wild-card spot behind the Yankees. It's the kind of stretch that turns a lost September for one club into a real problem for another.
Randy Arozarena over The Monster and the Mariners lead 6-1 in the second inning!
It started Monday night, when Arozarena went 4-for-5 with a homer over the Monster and 4 RBIs while scoring 3 times in Seattle's series opener. Boston still found a way to win that one 9-8 in 10 innings on a Trevor Story bases-loaded single, but Arozarena's night was the story everyone was talking about walking out of the ballpark. He kept it going Tuesday, sending another one over the wall in the second inning as the Mariners jumped out to a 6-1 lead.
Daniel Kramer's numbers on the latest homer paint the picture of just how squared-up Arozarena has been: 102.6 mph off the bat, a 30-degree launch angle, 382 feet, gone in under 5 seconds. That's not a lucky bounce off the Monster — that's a guy seeing the ball like a beach ball right now.
Randy Arozarena continues his monster series here at Fenway. That's five hits and 7 RBIs through the first 12 innings of this three-gamer. Exit velo: 102.6 mph Launch angle: 30° Distance: 382 ft. Hang time: 4.8 seconds t.co/DeJ4fsxThV
This isn't some one-series flash, either. Arozarena entered the series with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs on the year, and he's already delivered one of the wildest stretches of anyone's season — earlier in August he became just the third player in MLB history to hit a first-pitch leadoff homer and a walk-off homer in the same game, then followed it up with a leadoff shot the very next day, making him one of only two players ever to pull off leadoff-and-walkoff homers in a 2-game span.
The timing matters for Seattle, too. Arozarena is on a 1-year, $15.65 million deal he agreed to over the winter to avoid arbitration, and it's his final season of team control before hitting free agency. A finish like this — especially one that comes at the expense of a Red Sox team fighting the Yankees for wild-card position — is exactly the kind of platform year that gets outfielders paid in the offseason.
For Boston, the stakes are the flip side of the same coin. The Red Sox came into the series a handful of games back in the wild-card race, and dropping a series to a sub-.500 Mariners team because one guy won't stop hitting balls off the Monster is the nightmare version of September. With one more game left in this set, all eyes at Fenway are on whether Arozarena has one more big swing left in him.