BALTIMORE -- If Julio Rodríguez does complete the second 30-30 season of his career in 2025, home run No. 24 will be, without a doubt, the weirdest.
The at-bat during the Mariners’ 5-3 loss to the Orioles on Thursday at Oriole Park began amid increasingly heavy rain that neither Rodríguez nor O’s starter Tomoyuki Sugano wanted to play through.
Sugano hesitated so long on the mound that he was penalized one ball for a pitch clock violation, then after a mound conference, still hesitated to make another offering.
Rodríguez wasn’t bothered by Sugano’s hesitation. If anything, he was on his side, motioning to plate umpire Austin Jones toward deteriorating conditions in the batter’s box with his bat.
“Honestly, I was not -- I was telling the umpire, ‘This is going to get bad,’” Rodriguez said. “He was like, ‘Let’s get through this, let’s get through this.’ But I could tell [Sugano] didn’t want to pitch.”
Mercifully, umpires finally halted play before another pitch was delivered. When it resumed 2 hours and 18 minutes later, Rodríguez was facing reliever Rico Garcia, and he sent Garcia’s 2-2 offering just beyond the grounds crew shed in right-center.
“When he drives the ball the other way to right-center like that, that’s when he’s really in a good spot,” said manager Dan WIlson.
Rodríguez has 40 games to go to achieve the 30-30 feat a second time, after doing so in 2023 en route to his second of three All-Star appearances.
And even as the Mariners sputtered through their most difficult offensive series since August began, dropping two of three while falling 1.5 games back of the Astros in the AL West. Rodríguez continued his exceptional extended stretch that stretches back to early July.
“I just feel like I’m understanding myself and the things I like to do,” Rodriguez said. “And as the season goes on, in a way I just feel like I keep getting better.”
On Wednesday, he tripled to deep center to set up the Mariners’ first run, and then singled and swiped his 23rd bag before scoring again as Seattle tied it at 3-all in the ninth.
Then Thursday came his 13th home run since July 11, which pulled him into a tie with the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber for the most in baseball during that stretch, at least momentarily; Schwarber’s Phillies played in Washington later in the evening. Rodríguez is also slashing .305/.359/.686 with eight steals in that stretch.
With 122 games played, Rodríguez is on pace to finish with roughly 32 homers and 31 steals.
“I feel like those are rare things for players to do, so I think it would be cool,” Rodríguez said of potentially becoming baseball’s 17th repeat 30-30 member. “But as long as I’m helping the team win in many ways, that’s always going to be the focus.”
Rodríguez finished the series 4-for-10 and reached base twice in all three games of a series where the Mariners as a whole plated only three runs combined against the Orioles’ three starters.
Unlike the previous two nights, Sugano (10-5) definitively outdueled Mariners rookie Logan Evans (6-5), who walked four and eventually paid with three runs -- two earned -- in his fourth and final inning.
Even so, the Mariners had a late rally fall fractionally short for a second consecutive game, loading the bases when Cal Raleigh -- given a rare rest day from the starting lineup -- drew a one-out walk.
Randy Arozarena legged out a run-scoring fielder’s choice to keep the game alive before Josh Naylor grounded out to end the threat.
“I was really happy with the way the guys came out there after the delay,” Wilson said. “That shows the fight that we talk about in these guys.”