Mariners offense breaks through to defeat Rangers

Adam Jude, The Seattle Times on Apr 18, 2026

Published in Baseball

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SEATTLE — Luke Raley belted his fifth home run of the season to lead a long-awaited offensive breakthrough for the Seattle Mariners, who snapped a four-game losing streak with a 7-3 victory over the Texas Rangers before a sold-out crowd of 45,552 at T-Mobile Park Saturday afternoon.

Three days after the worst outing of his career, Andrés Muñoz was called on to close this one out with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the ninth inning, after the Rangers had already scored two runs off M’s reliever Cole Wilcox.

Muñoz got ahead of Brandon Nimmo, the Rangers’ leadoff hitter, who swung over an 87-mph slider. On his second pitch, Muñoz got a called strike two on a 99-mph fastball.

After Nimmo fouled off another fastball, Muñoz threw another slider that Nimmo swung over for strike three, ending the game with the bases loaded.

It was, finally, a feel-good showing for the Mariners (9-13) and their much maligned lineup, which had mustered just three runs total in four games (all losses) to the Rangers over the previous 11 days.

Dominic Canzone had a key two-run single off Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi in the fourth inning, and Cole Young added a two-run single in the eighth inning to help the Mariners pull away.

J.P. Crawford led off the bottom of the first with a double down the right-field line, moved to third base on a Cal Raleigh groundout to the right side and then scored on Julio Rodríguez’s inside-out single to right field, giving the Mariners a 1-0 lead.

The Mariners finished with 11 hits, just their third double-digit hit total in 22 games.

George Kirby was strong over 5 2/3 innings, allowing only a Josh Jung solo homer in the sixth inning. Kirby scattered seven hits with two walks and five strikeouts.

Kirby worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the fourth inning by getting Ezequiel Duran and Kyle Higashioka to fly out to center field.

With the M’s leading 4-1, Eduard Bazardo then got out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh inning when Jung popped out to center.

In the top of the ninth, the Rangers loaded the bases again, this time against Wilcox. The Rangers pushed one run across on Evan Carter’s sac fly, and then another on Duran’s hard-hit double to left field.

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