Mariners club 5 home runs to complete sweep against Tigers

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on Jul 13, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DETROIT — Julio Rodríguez got it started. Jorge Polanco and Cole Young provided the final blows with a whole bunch of Randy Arozarena and one big swing from Mitch Garver in between.

The Seattle Mariners could not have asked for a better way to head into the All-Star break.

The Mariners clubbed five solo homers on their way to an 8-4 win over the Detroit Tigers and a three-game sweep of the best team in baseball before 34,671 at Comerica Park on Sunday.

What looked to potentially be a disastrous road trip going into the break after getting swept in New York now has a completely different lens after the three days in the Motor City. The M’s handed the Tigers their second sweep and first at home. The only other time the Tigers were swept this season came in the opening three games of the year back in late March at Dodger Stadium.

About the only thing that didn’t go the Mariners way was seeing Cal Raleigh match Barry Bonds for the most home runs in baseball history before the break. Raleigh had to settle for 38, the second-most all-time.

The M’s are 51-45 at the All-Star break and are 18-11 over the past 29 games since getting swept in Arizona.

In pulling off the sweep, the M’s showed the slugging from their offense that needs to carry into the second half. They hit 11 home runs and had 40 total hits over the three games. No one in baseball has been hotter at hitting the long ball over the past two weeks than Arozarena, who homered for the ninth time in the past 13 games with a solo shot off Detroit starter Jack Flaherty on the first pitch of the fourth inning.

Arozarena had an ugly strikeout with the bases loaded and nobody out in the first inning. The homer was a first step in countering the strikeout and he later added an RBI double in the eighth inning to pull the Mariners even at 4-4.

Garver’s homer broke the 2-2 tie leading off the seventh inning and came off Tyler Holton, who allowed one of Raleigh’s two homers on Friday night. And the combo of Polanco and Young provided the winning swings in the ninth going back-to-back with solo shots off Detroit’s Tommy Kahnle.

Polanco’s was his 15th of the season; Young’s was the second of his career.

But the biggest story was the monster weekend from Rodríguez. He had six hits, three home runs, two doubles, scored eight runs, stole two bases and walked four times.

Rodríguez’s homer in the third inning was his 14th of the season and went to the opposite field. He laid off a two-strike fastball that was off the plate and when Flaherty tried to come back with the same pitch, Rodríguez drove it into the right field seats. Only one of his previous 14 homers this season was hit to right field and that came back on April 4 in San Francisco off Justin Verlander.

Last year, Rodríguez homered four times to right, but during the 2023 season he lived by driving the ball the other way with nine of his 32 homers that season being hit to right field, per MLB Statcast data.

It marked the second time in his career homering in three straight games, the only other time coming from Aug. 26-28, 2023.

Logan Gilbert pitched into the sixth as the Mariners got another strong performance from their starter in the series.

Gilbert’s start began a little like his interrupted outing last Tuesday in New York ended. That night in the Bronx, Gilbert was nearly unhittable before a rain delay and struggled following the brief break.

This time, Gilbert struggled at the start and then kept the Tigers scoreless into the sixth. Detroit scored twice in the first inning, although the inning was helped by Luke Raley’s throwing error at first base as he couldn’t connect with Gilbert coming over to cover. Gilbert walked Spencer Torkelson with two outs and Dillon Dingler clanked a two-run double off the wall in left.

From there, Gilbert was excellent. He allowed five hits the rest of the way and was helped out by Rodríguez throwing out Gleyber Torres trying to go from first to third on Riley Greene’s single in the third inning. Gilbert was pulled after giving up a one-out walk in the sixth, but struck out nine and was not charged with an earned run.

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