Former Seattle Mariners' ace Marco Gonzales was on the wrong side of some spring training history on Wednesday night, surrendering three home runs to New York Yankees' slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
Stanton's three home-run performance was just the second three-home run game in spring training since 2006 (both of which came in the last week).
And there's also this unfortunate note for Gonzales, per Sarah Langs of MLB.com:
Giancarlo Stanton’s EIGHT RBI are the most by a player in a spring training game since at least 2006
Gonzales, who is now pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, went 3.2 innings, surrendering nine earned runs on 10 hits. He gave up four home runs in all and owns a 9.88 spring ERA.
It's been a tumultuous offseason for Gonzales, who was traded twice this offseason. Gonzales was traded from Seattle to the Atlanta Braves in the deal that sent Jarred Kelenic to Atlanta and then was sent to Pittsburgh where he'll slot in with Mitch Keller and Martin Perez in the starting rotation.
Gonzales was acquired by the Mariners in 2017 and was meant to be a building block for the next wave of M's contending teams. He was just that, winning 13 games in 2018 when the M's last went for it with the Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager, Felix Hernandez and Robinson Cano group.
Then, when the team started its rebuild, Gonzales was there, serving as the ace in both 2019 and 2020. He won 16 games for the M's in 2019, despite the team only winning 68 games. He then went 7-2 during the COVID 2020 shortened season before winning 10 more games in 2021 as the M's pushed back towards contention.
Unfortunately, he regressed in each of the last two seasons, going 10-15 with a 4.13 ERA in 2022 and pitching to a 5.22 ERA in 10 games in 2023 before shutting it down with an elbow injury. He insists he's healthy now and trained at Driveline this offseason in an effort to re-find his form.
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