Prince of Pittsburgh: Cole Young delivers go-ahead homer in 3-2 Mariners win

There’s a running joke in one of my group chats that Cole Young looks like a Disney prince who decided to play baseball instead (show me the lie). In tonight’s series opener against the Pirates, Young Prince Cole had a game fit for a golden era Disney film. Making his first-ever appearance as a big-leaguer in PNC Park, where the Pittsburgh-born Young grew up attending games, and in front of a host of friends, family, and former coaches – including his coach at North Allegheny High, Andrew Heck – Young had a go-ahead homer that would be the game-winner for the Mariners in a narrow 3-2 victory over the Pirates.

The Mariners scored all their runs via the longball tonight, even though only two made it over the fence: they made 11 outs in the air, along with a pair of hard-hit lineouts, but the balls consistently died at the warning track. Meanwhile, the Pirates managed to scrape out a lead on George Kirby, first going up 1-0 in the second on a combination of an Endy Rodríguez double and a Marcell Ozuna RBI single, both hits coming on four-seamers that caught too much plate.

Pittsburgh would add on another run in the bottom of the third, although this wasn’t as much Kirby’s fault. Brandon Lowe singled on a curveball that was well-located, and then would come around to score on a weakly-hit ball off the bat of Nick Gonzales that J.P. Crawford couldn’t field cleanly. Today was the first day Crawford has looked shaky at third after being impressive in his first few turns at the position, but he was far from the only one performing some shaky defense, as even the normally sure-handed Colt Emerson threw one away, and Josh Naylor struggled to corral some of those wilder throws.

To his credit, Kirby was able to navigate around those hiccups and also some self-inflicted traffic. He and Cal Raleigh made a good adjustment after the first couple of innings, realizing the Pirates were keyed in on his fastball, and Kirby found the command over his sweeper, which had been somewhat all over the place in the early innings. Kirby leaned heavily on the sweeper over the rest of his outing, throwing it 46% of the time – normally he uses the pitch under 30% of the time, while halving the use of his fastball. All five of his strikeouts today came on the sweeper.

“It seemed like they had a pretty good gameplan of swinging first pitch, and I don’t blame ‘em,” said Kirby. “But I feel like I settled in pretty good once I got that slider working.”

The Mariners offense has been stingy with giving Kirby run support, but Cal Raleigh came through with his first homer after coming back from his stint on the IL, punishing a mistake slider Pirates starter Mitch Keller hung on the plate and finally getting a ball over the fence at PNC Park, a 393-footer to right center.

The Mariners would do just enough to get past the Pirates in the seventh inning, spurred on by the hometown kid, Cole Young. Luke Raley led off with a hustle double, lacing a sinker into center and running hard enough to beat Jake Mangum’s throw in. He needn’t have hustled quite so hard, though. With Young due up, 0-for-2 on the day so far with a pair of groundouts (including an inning-ending GIDP), the Pirates elected to leave in the righty Keller instead of going to the bullpen. Keller made a mistake pitch, leaving a sweeper right in Young’s lefty loop zone, and Young – who said he was just trying to hit a single into right to score the run – instead hit play on a highlight reel that will be replayed at every family gathering to come for years, crushing a go-ahead home run that went right past the section of his family and friends.

“I knew I got it good, so it had a chance,” said Young postgame. “t’s really special. I got my whole family, all my friends in the stands…It was a super surreal moment. It was great. I just kind of blacked out a little bit.”

“Just glad I got the job done,” he added, because once the son of a blue-collar rust belt city like Pittsburgh, always the lunchpail-toter.

The Mariners couldn’t add on after that despite some more traffic on the bases, leaving the back end of the bullpen just one measly run to work with. José A. Ferrer was terrific, putting down his assigned hitters in the seventh 1-2-3, Eduard Bazardo had to work a little harder, but was able to work around a single from lefty Ryan O’Hearn and a semi-intentional walk to Marcell Ozuna to keep the score intact. He might not have had a clean inning, but he did pick up a Pitching Ninja highlight:

Armed with that same one-run lead, Andrés Muñoz had the ninth and looked maybe the best he has all season: his fastball was up a full two ticks, averaging 100.7 and touching 102. He struck out the side, including Spencer Horwitz, who walks more than he strikes out, and ended his night on a filthy bit of sequencing to Brandon Lowe where he went down with a slider for a foul followed by high heat.

But tonight belongs to the Prince of Pittsburgh, Cole Young. In a season that’s been plagued by injuries, Young has been the Mariners’ iron man, playing every day. He’s been the steady lighthouse in an infield that’s been beset by injuries and mistakes both rookie and veteran, even flexing back to shortstop when needed despite the difficulties he experienced making the full-time shift to second base last year. Because of his availability and steady hand at the keystone, he’s essentially been unbenchable, meaning that as teams load up on lefties to serve the Mariners a bottomless buffet of southpaws, Young hasn’t been granted the day off, even as he’s gone through fallow periods with the bat.

Tonight, in front of friends and family and the high school baseball coaches who helped shape the player he is today, Young was rewarded with a fairy-tale moment. His high school coach even got the home run ball. Heck offered to give it back to Cole, but Cole told him to keep it, because what matters even more than the happily ever after are the people who helped you get there in the first place.