Cole Young shows he could give Mariners ‘huge boost’

The first five games of the season have come with some good signs for the Seattle Mariners, especially in the case of second baseman Cole Young.

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After an up-and-down rookie year that ended with Young mostly on the bench while the Mariners made their postseason push, the former top prospect broke spring camp with the second base job in hand and a chase to establish himself as the club’s future at the position.

The early are signs are pointing towards Young grabbing the role and running with it.

Young led the M’s with six homers during an impressive spring training, including a mammoth 478-foot moonshot at the end of Cactus League play. He’s picked up where he left off in Arizona through the first five games of the regular season, where even the significantly colder Seattle weather hasn’t cooled his swing.

Young is 6 for 18 with a homer, two doubles and a .979 OPS. He’s had a hit in each of the past four games, including a key three-hit performance in Monday’s win over the New York Yankees.

“Cole Young looks as locked in as he ever has in his young major league career,” Mariners play-by-play voice Aaron Goldsmith told Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Tuesday. “It looks like all the work he put in the offseason has paid some massive dividends already. I mean, it’s still five games, there will be slumps for Cole Young, but for a young player who didn’t end on the note that he wanted to last year, who put in all that kind of work in the wintertime… there’s something about immediate returns.”

“Not just hard outs that you can hang your hat on and talk yourself up about, but, like, real contact,” Goldsmith added. “Three hits in a game, three-run homers, great defense – that kind of stuff is massively tangible.”

What has the makings of the start of a potential breakout for Young began during the club’s first win of the season on Friday against the Cleveland Guardians. With the M’s down 1-0 and two runners on with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning, Young jumped all over an 0-2 fastball from right-hander Gavin Williams for a three-run homer to right field.

The second baseman came up with a key hit to help the Mariners force extra innings in an eventual loss to Cleveland the following night. In a 2-2 count against closer Cade Smith, he served a fastball the other way for a double down the left field line and came around to score the tying run on Julio Rodríguez’s two-out single.

And in his three-hit game Monday, Young was able to get to a sinker in on his hands from Yankees lefty Ryan Weathers and parachute an RBI single into right field during the second inning.

Young coming up with big hits against fastballs is particularly notable. He batted just .182 (26 for 139) with a .237 slugging percentage on fastballs last year. He’s 4 for 9 with a homer and a double against fastballs so far this season.

“We’ve talked a little bit about how his problem last year mainly was he wasn’t hitting the fastball,” Mariners insider Shannon Drayer told Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Tuesday. “(He) went to work on that in the offseason, went to work on that also down in spring training, and just about everything he has hit so far this year has been the fastball – and pitchers are throwing it to him a lot right now because he didn’t hit it last year and he’s taking advantage. So that’s been a lot of fun.”

On top of what he’s done at the plate, Young has looked solid defensively at second base. On Friday, he turned in a defensive gem with a diving stop to his right on a hard-hit grounder from José Ramírez.

“He has helped the Mariners win games,” Goldsmith said. “And if he can be noticeably better, some form better, than he was last year for the Mariners, what a huge boost that’ll be over the course of six months.”

Hear the full conversations with Mariners insider Shannon Drayer and play-by-play voice Aaron Goldsmith here. Listen to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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