Seattle, WA
Seattle Mariners power past Padres 5-1 in Vedder Cup opener
SAN DIEGO (AP) — J.P. Crawford homered on Stephen Kolek’s first pitch and Rowdy Tellez and Cal Raleigh each added a two-run shot for the Seattle Mariners, who beat the San Diego Padres 5-1 Friday night in the opening game of the inaugural Vedder Cup.
Seattle Mariners 5, San Diego Padres 1: Box score
Rookie Logan Evans (2-1) pitched six strong innings for the Mariners, who took a 1 1/2-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West. The Padres came in trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers by one game in the NL West.
J.P. Crawford launches 1st-pitch leadoff HR in return to lineup
The annual interleague series between the teams that share a spring training complex was informally known since 2011 as the Vedder Cup, a reference to Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. Vedder, who is actually a Chicago Cubs fan, spent some formative years in San Diego before moving to Seattle and joining the fledgling band in 1990. The two teams formalized the competition in March, with the winner getting a trophy featuring a guitar provided by Vedder. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
The teams play again in Seattle Aug. 25-27.
The Padres and Mariners will support EB Research Partnership, a charity co-founded by Eddie and Jill Vedder dedicated to funding research to discover treatments and cures for Epidermolysis Bullosa.
Crawford’s homer was his fourth. Tellez also connected to right with two outs in the fourth, with Raleigh aboard on a walk. It was his seventh. Raleigh homered to left, his 14th, after Julio Rodriguez singled leading off the sixth.
Evans, whose ERA was lowered by six runs on Thursday due to a scoring decision change, held the Padres to seven hits while striking out three and walking one. Only four Padres reached scoring position.
Kolek (2-1) was coming off his first career complete game in a 21-0 win at Colorado last Saturday. He allowed five runs and eight hits in five innings, with four strikeouts and one walk.
Key moment
Crawford set the tone with his 357-foot homer over the home run porch in the right field corner.
Key Stat
Crawford’s 14 leadoff homers are second in Mariners history behind Ichiro Suzuki’s 37.
Up next
Mariners RHP Emerson Hancock (1-2, 6.91 ERA) and Padres RHP Nick Pivetta (5-2, 3.05) are scheduled to start Saturday night.
Seattle Mariners news and analysis
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• Cal Raleigh shares the impact made by Seattle Mariners hitting coaches
• Why Seattle Mariners are a ‘more compelling’ team this season
• Seattle Mariners’ Dylan Moore shares key factors to career-best start
• Could Seattle Mariners swing an early trade? Morosi weighs in
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Thanks to Carrie Brown for the westward view of our Saturday night sunset. The high today hit 68 at the airport – eight degrees above normal – but nowhere near the record for this date, which was 89 degrees back in 2016. The forecast suggests two more days of partly sunny, almost-70-degree weather, before the chance of rain returns.
CHICAGO (AP) — The struggling New York Mets placed former Seattle Mariners second baseman/designated hitter Jorge Polanco on the 10-day injured list on Saturday with a right wrist contusion.
Mariners Injury Update: Latest on Robles, Vargas and more
The move was made retroactive to Wednesday, a day after Polanco went 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in a 2-1 loss at the Los Angeles Dodgers. The 32-year-old Polanco is batting .179 (10 for 56) with a homer and two RBIs in his first season with New York, which has lost nine straight.
“When doctors first took a look at him, it looked like he got hit by a pitch when he didn’t,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “In talking to him, it was just a couple of swings that he took that night. … He didn’t think much of it, but just got worse the following day.
“So you just got to let it calm down a little bit and then we’ll go from there. But we don’t have a timetable for how long this is going to last.”
Polanco, who signed a two-year, $40 million contract with the Mets in December, also has been dealing with an ankle issue.
“He was trending in the right direction,” Mendoza said of the ankle injury. “It’s definitely going to help, obviously now with him being shut down. But the biggest thing now is that we’ve got to take care of that wrist.”
Polanco spent the previous two seasons with the Mariners, who acquired him in a February 2024 trade with the Minnesota Twins.
Polanco struggled during his first season with Seattle in 2024, hitting just .213 with 16 homers in 118 games while playing through a knee injury that didn’t become public knowledge until after the season.
But after the Mariners somewhat surprisingly brought him back for a one-year contract in 2025, Polanco rebounded to hit .265 with 26 homers and an .821 OPS in 138 games last season. He then added three homers during Seattle’s playoff run, along with a 15th-inning walkoff single in Game 5 of the American League Division Series that sent the Mariners to their first ALCS in 24 years.
Seattle Sports staff made additions to this post.
Mariners RHP Bryce Miller to begin rehab assignment
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