Houston Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena (3) congratulates Houston Astros left fielder Jose Altuve (27) after the final out against the Seattle Mariners during the ninth inning at Daikin Park on May 22. Erik Williams-Imagn Images

Seattle Mariners' Runner Gets Thrown Out at Plate By Ridiculous Amount on Friday

Originally posted on Seattle Mariners on SI
By Brady Farkas | Last updated May 24, 2025 11:00 AM ET

The Seattle Mariners rallied to beat the Houston Astros 5-3 on Friday night at Daikin Park.

With the win, Seattle is now 29-21 and they are 6-2 on this 10-game road trip through San Diego, Chicago (White Sox) and Houston. They lead the American League West by 3.5 games entering play on Saturday.

Down 3-2 in the top of the seventh inning, Julio Rodriguez hit a game-tying double and Cal Raleigh scored him on a go-ahead two-run home run.

However, one inning earlier, it looked like the M's may have missed their opportunity to even up the score as Raleigh was thrown out at the plate from left field by Jose Altuve by a healthy amount.

You simply can’t run on Altuve’s Howitzer.

pic.twitter.com/PNJMoNT88Q
— RobnCypress (@robncypress) May 24, 2025

There's a few things at play here that are worth noting:

1) In hindsight, the decision to send Raleigh by third-base coach Kris Negron looks egregious, but you can understand that the M's wanted to test Altuve, who is a converted infielder with a poorly-regarded arm.

2) The Mariners know that the Astros were likely to turn to their leverage arms in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, so perhaps they felt like they had to try to get that run off a lower-leverage arm in Bryan King. However, if they had just stopped Raleigh, the bases would have been loaded with one out.

3) The thing to realize about this play is that there was only one out. As a result, Raleigh had to wait to see if the ball was going to drop in front of Altuve. Had he just been running hard initially, he may have scored, but he had to hold up at first, making it even tougher.

The Mariners will be back in action on Saturday at 1:10 p.m. PT against the Astros again. Bryan Woo will pitch against Framber Valdez.

This article first appeared on Seattle Mariners on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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