Arozarena’s two-homer night lifts Mariners over Royals
Randy Arozarena stole the spotlight on Monday night, delivering a pair of home runs to lead the Seattle Mariners to a 6-2 win over the Kansas City Royals at T-Mobile Park.
Batting in the heart of the lineup, Arozarena launched his 100th career homer in the early innings, then followed it up with a three-run blast off Royals starter Michael Wacha, breaking open a tight 2-1 game and extending the Mariners' lead to 5-1, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Catcher Cal Raleigh added to the offensive firepower, providing the late-game encore as Seattle kicked off a seven-game homestand in front of 27,309 fans.
Arozarena homered twice off Kansas City starter Michael Wacha. The first was the 100th career homer for Arozarena and the second was a three-run shot that turned a 2-1 game into a 5-1 Mariners lead.
Hitting the century mark gave Arozarena a chance to recollect about his first homer in the majors back in 2019 when he was an unknown prospect then in the Cardinals organization and homered in Arizona on the final week of the regular season.
But also when he was truly unknown as a teenager still in Cuba and remembered hitting three homers in a game. Even then, playing in the majors wasn’t even a thought, let alone reaching 100 home runs.
“Thinking of those three home runs and now coming here and being able to hit 100 it kind of gives me like, ‘Wow, I’ve hit 100 home runs in the best baseball league in the world,'” Arozarena said via interpreter Freddy Llanos. “So it kind of makes me think about the kind of batter I was back then, because I didn’t think back then I was a batter that hit for power. I was more of a guy that would just hit balls to the opposite side of the field. So these home runs — 100 and 101 to be more specific — it’s just amazes me.”
And then it was Raleigh’s turn to add a little flourish on the day the second phase of All-Star Game voting started.
While it seems a foregone conclusion that Raleigh will be the starting catcher for the American League in the midsummer classic two weeks from now in Atlanta, the Mariners are going all-out with their push to make sure their guy is the one behind the plate.
Moments like what he provided in the seventh inning will only help solidify his spot. Leading off against Kansas City reliever Daniel Lynch IV, Raleigh drove a 2-1 curveball that was off the plate out to right-center field for his 33rd homer of the season.
In doing so, Raleigh became just the fifth player in baseball history to hit at least 33 homers before the end of June joining Ken Griffey Jr. (1998), Sammy Sosa (1998), Mark McGwire (1998) and Barry Bonds (2001).
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