– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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ARLINGTON, TEXAS — The defense of their 2023 World Series championship ended with a whimper for the Texas Rangers, but at least their home game ended with the same thrills that woke up some of the echoes of last year’s glory.
Marcus Semien lined a walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Rangers came back from a 5-0 deficit to stun the Seattle Mariners 6-5 in the regular season home finale for Texas at Globe Life Field on Sunday afternoon. Leody Taveras had three hits, including the game-tying solo home run in the seventh inning to tie the game at 5-5.
Taveras started the game-winning rally with two outs and no one off Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz, singling to left center and then stealing second base. On a 1-1 pitch, Semien lined a slider down the third base line and just inside the bag to give the Rangers their 10th walk-off win of the season.
“It hasn’t been the year we wanted,” Semien said. “Glad we ended it like that. We just want to finish strong.”
Seattle missed a chance to gain ground in the Wild Card race, with the Orioles and Royals losing their games while the Twins dropping both ends of a doubleheader in Boston. The Mariners are two games back of the Royals and Tigers of the final Wild Card spot with six games left, and are five games behind the Houston Astros in the American League West, with the Mariners and Astros starting a three-game set in Houston on Tuesday. (One Astros win clinches the AL West for Houston.)
“These guys have faced that challenge a lot during the past couple of weeks,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “We talked about it a lot [and] how they’ve been able to be resilient, to bounce back and be ready to play the next day. We’re going to have to do it again.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Sunday afternoon’s game, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Ross James. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 31 pictures in total.
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