Mariners sweep Guardians behind red-hot J.P. Crawford

Shane Lantz, The Seattle Times on Jun 15, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SEATTLE — J.P. Crawford is on some kind of a heater at the plate. At this point, it’s best for opposing pitchers to just assume he’s going to do some damage.

One night after reaching base five times and slugging three hits in Seattle’s walk-off win over the Cleveland Guardians, the Mariners hot-hitting shortstop followed that up in grand fashion on Sunday with a second-inning grand slam off Guardians starter Luis Ortiz on Father’s Day.

With Crawford and his wife Kathy welcoming their first baby, Korra, this past December, it was a perfectly grand way for Crawford to celebrate his first Father’s Day as a dad.

At 337 feet, it was also a great display of that innate fatherly quality known as Dad Strength.

The homer, which Crawford knew right away was ticketed for a spot deep in the right-field seats as he pointed his bat toward the sky in triumph, gave Seattle a commanding five-run lead as the Mariners finished off a three-game sweep of the Guardians with a 6-0 victory in front of 40,871 fans at T-Mobile Park.

After losing eight of their past nine coming into the series, and going just 1-5 on a miserable six-game road trip, Crawford’s grand slam was the commanding stamp on a winning weekend the Mariners desperately needed.

It was Crawford’s fifth career grand slam and his first since June 1, 2024, against the Los Angeles Angels. After his production tanked in an injury-plagued 2024, Crawford has once again been one of Seattle’s best hitters this season.

Randy Arozarena led off that five-run second with a walk and then made third on a Rowdy Tellez double down the left-field line. Dominic Canzone walked to load the bases with one out after a Mitch Garver strikeout, and Miles Mastrobuoni made it a one-run lead with a bloop single to right field.

Four pitches later, Crawford took advantage of an 85-mph slider at the bottom of the zone for his sixth home run of the season, and kept his scorching hot streak at the plate over the past several weeks alive.

Crawford came into Sunday’s game hitting .444 since May 30 with a .538 on-base percentage and a 1.131 OPS, with five doubles, five RBIs and 11 walks in that time. His 46 walks this season are the sixth-most in MLB and his .411 OBP ranks fourth in baseball and second in the American League behind Aaron Judge.

While Crawford stole the show with his moonshot homer, Emerson Hancock pitched one of the best game of his young career, allowing just two hits and a walk over seven shutout innings with four strikeouts, marking his fourth consecutive start, and fifth time in his past six starts, that he has allowed two or fewer runs.

The 26-year old Hancock has been a source of consistency for the Mariners in a roller-coaster season for the rotation, as Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and George Kirby have all missed time due to injury.

While he spent part of the season in the minor leagues after allowing seven hits and six earned runs in 2/3 of an inning against Detroit on March 31, he has been one of the Mariners' most reliable arms since getting called back up in mid-April.

Hancock has pitched at least five innings in 10 of his past 11 starts, and has allowed two or fewer runs in eight of those starts.

Casey Legumina pitched a scoreless eighth inning for Seattle, and Eduard Bazardo finished things off with a scoreless ninth.

Mitch Garver added a run in the fifth for the Mariners with an RBI double to left-center that scored Arozarena, who walked three times in the game, scored two runs, and reached on a hit-by-pitch.

Seattle drew five walks against Ortiz, who allowed six runs and five hits over six innings.