‘He’s so electric’: Arozarena brings spark to Mariners

Some players just seem to have the clutch gene. Seattle Mariners left fielder Randy Arozarena is one of them.

From his rise to stardom during Tampa Bay’s 2020 run to the World Series to his heroics for Team Mexico in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Arozarena has had knack for coming through in big situations and playing his best under the brightest lights.

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The Mariners are starting to get a taste of that early this season. There haven’t been many big moments thus far for the M’s offense. But when they have come, oftentimes Arozarena has been the one standing in the batter’s box.

The clearest example came Wednesday in Seattle’s stunning 7-6 comeback win over division-rival Houston. Arozarena cranked a two-out grand slam into the bullpen in left field to pull his team within one run in the bottom of the eighth inning. Then he took a pair of pitches with two strikes with the bases loaded in the ninth to work the walk-off walk that sent the M’s to their first series win of the season.

Watch: Randy slam, Julio’s big hit lead Seattle Mariners over Astros

“I think I’m going to credit a lot of it to some of the cage work I did before the game,” Arozarena said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “I felt really good there, so I think that was some of the results that we saw today. When that home run came, I was looking for a fastball because they had been throwing a lot of fastballs and I was missing a couple.

“So I just kind of prepared and made sure none of them got ahead of me and made contact with them.”

When Arozarena launched his 384-foot home run off a fastball on the inside corner from Astros left-hander Steven Okert, he took a few seconds to admire it before taking a slow jog around the bases, hitting his signature cross-armed pose at first base. It breathed life into the crowd at T-Mobile Park and a Seattle offense that had been shut down by Houston starter Hunter Brown.

“Randy’s always looking to light things up,” center fielder Julio Rodríguez said. “Every time you step on the field, he’s so electric. He definitely came (up) huge for us at that spot, and that is what he does. Whenever he’s on at the plate, he can cause so many things for the other team.”

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Arozarena’s five-RBI day wasn’t the first time he has come up big for the Mariners through the first 13 games. He hit the game-tying solo home run in the eighth inning of their 4-2 opening day victory over the A’s, and came through with a game-tying double last Sunday with the team down to its final strike in an eventual 5-4 loss in extra innings to San Francisco.

A good sign of things to come?

Some of the overall numbers for the right-handed slugger don’t exactly jump off the page. He’s hitting just .191, including 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position and 3 for 23 with runners on base. But when Arozarena is getting hits, he’s doing damage. Seven  of his nine total hits have gone for extra bases (four doubles, three home runs), which combined with 10 walks has helped him put up an .801 OPS.

There’s also some reason to believe more hits will start falling for Arozarena soon. He has an expected batting average of .247 and has been consistently hitting the ball hard with a 91.3 mph average exit velocity that ranks in the 71st percentile of MLB hitters, per Baseball Savant.

“He’s really swinging the bat well,” manager Dan Wilson said. “And we saw it all spring where he had really changed his approach and was using the middle of the field, and he’s continuing to do that. The at-bats have been really, really good.”

Arozarena is also starting to feel at home after being dealt to Seattle before the 2024 trade deadline. The move was a tough one for Arozarena. He was a fan favorite in Tampa, which is much closer to his home country of Cuba than the Pacific Northwest is.

“I kind of already knew about some of the fans here,” he said. “You always watch them and the fans are always packing up the stadium. They’re always large crowds here. So when I got here, I was excited to play with them. And even now, win or lose, they’re always out there.

“For me, I really like to reciprocate the love that the fans show me. So out in left field whenever they’re cheering for me and yelling for me, it kind of gets me going.”

And Arozarena wants to bring those fans some baseball in October.

“I always see myself kind of like a motor, trying to pass the energy that I have to everyone else,” he said. “I know we have a good group … and I know it’s early in the season, but the object is October. I want to get back to October.”

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