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Despite other contenders who played third base in the 40-year Mariners history, Seager is our greatest third baseman. With his victory, he has earned a greatest hits compilation. So, here are Seager’s top three best games over his six, going on seven, years in Seattle.
There hasn’t been one season in Kyle Seager’s still young Mariners career where he hasn’t played above-average baseball.
But, as our own Colby Patnode reminded us, there have been quite a few talented men at the hot corner, so what put’s him ahead of the rest?
Well, if we look optimistically into the future, what we’ve seen so far in Seager’s career is just the beginning of something very special.
Offensively, he’s been a reliable doubles and home run hitter.
If he continues to hit his average of 33 doubles and 24 home runs per campaign over the course of the next three seasons, he will end up sitting in 4th on both the Mariners all-time doubles list with 279 only behind Ichiro, Edgar Martinez, and Ken Griffey Jr. and the team’s all-time home runs list with 198 behind Jay Buhner, Martinez and Griffey Jr.
Seeing that he is signed with the Mariners for the next five years until 2021 -with a team option in 2022- there is surely much more to come from the budding eldest Seager who finished 12th in the AL MVP voting this past year.
Defensively, he may not be as reliable as Beltre was, but there are likely a couple more Gold Gloves in his future if he can cut back from his AL-worst 22 errors in 2016.
Despite the mounting mistakes at arguably the hardest position in the field, Seager was still nominated as a finalist for the prestigious fielding award last year.
If his future ends up being as good as his past, we’re in for a treat from the Mariners darling. Here are his best three games so far, making him our greatest M’s third baseman in history.
Oct 1, 2016; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager (15) yells out after striking out against the Oakland Athletics to end the fifth inning at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Jennifer Buchanan-USA TODAY Sports
June 2nd, 2014
In 2014, the year he was first nominated to the AL all-star team, won the Gold Glove for third basemen, and finished 20th in the AL MVP voting, he put on many epic displays of his skill.
From multi-hit games to multi-extra-base-hit games to multi-home run games, Seager did it all in the first two months of the 2014 season. But, it was on this game in early June that he did all of that (minus the multiple home runs).
With Felix Hernandez on the mound this evening in Yankee Stadium (easily the park he’s pitched best in over his storied career) the Mariners didn’t need to score that many runs on their opponent, but Seager wanted to make sure his team would coast to a victory.
In his first at-bat, Seager used an awkward bounce of the ball caused by it hitting the base of the center-field wall to hustle out a triple; it was his 5th three-bagger of his career. Mike Zunino brought in the third baseman in the next plate appearance.
After getting a taste of a rare triple, Seager was ready for another three-bagger in the 4th. This time he got fairly lucky.
Brett Gardner almost made a spectacular sliding grab along the left field foul line, yet the ball popped out of his glove, almost landing in Derek Jeter’s grasp. Amazingly it slipped out of his hands as well and Seager -who had been running the bases the entire time- capitalized on Jeter’s casual stroll to the ball which he must’ve thought was foul and ended up at third for the second time. Seager would score a few batters later for his 2nd run of the day.
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With that hit, he became the 13th Mariners player in history to record multiple triples in one game. He was only the 5th to do it since 1996.
Following a lineout in the 6th, Seager would step to the plate and smack his third extra-base hit of the game; this time it was a double to right.
Seager ended the day in the ninth as the Mariners were running up the score against their American League rivals with his biggest hit of the night: a three-run homer that pushed the M’s tally to 10 runs compared to the Yankees two.
Seager would not have many games where he would have such a complete performance like he did on this day, but he did put on a couple more shows that were also pretty spectacular.
Sep 23, 2016; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager (15) doubles in the seventh inning against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
May 26th, 2015
Unlike the two other games that were chosen, Seager decided to make his mark on this game late into the night, including extra innings.
Seager did start off with a flair, singling in Seth Smith from third base to score the game’s 2nd run. It wouldn’t be until the 8th inning that Seager would make another positive offensive contribution, but it would be worth the wait.
With the bases loaded, Seager would step into the batter’s box and smash a crucial grand slam blast about 10 rows into the right field stands putting the Mariners ahead of the Tampa Rays 6-2. Up to this point, Seager had five of the team’s six runs.
As the entire Mariners dugout watched the bullpen crumble in the bottom of the 9th, Seager would have to deliver one more blow to the Rays to record the knockout win.
In the 10th, with the count not in his favor at 0-2, he took the next pitch to dead center over the outreaching glove of Rays center fielder, Kevin Kiermaier.
The Mariners had regained the lead and this time it was for good. Joe Beimel would come in to close out the game in the home half of the 10th recording his 1st save of the year, his only as a Mariner, and just 5th in his 13-year career.
The six RBIs is still a personal-best for Seager, and on this day, Seager became just the 27th player in Mariners history to record multiple home runs and at least six runs batted in in the same game.
Aug 30, 2016; Arlington, TX, USA; Seattle Mariners third baseman Kyle Seager (15) drives in two runs in the fifth inning against the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports
August 24th, 2011
After Seager made his debut on July 7th in 2011, the new Mariners third baseman took a few weeks to acclimate to the big leagues. It wasn’t until mid-to-late August that we began to see his true potential.
Coming into his game on August 21st, Seager was hitting a dreary .206. Over his next three games -including a doubleheader on the 23rd- Seager would raise his average to .273. It would be the game following his 6-9, one home run, two double day, that would really put the league on notice.
Again, Seager would make a big impact early on in the contest, doubling in his first two plate appearances. The latter of the two-base knocks would narrowly miss a home run as the ball bounced off the right-field wall. However, he wasn’t done reaching second just yet.
In the 5th, Seager would drive another shot right down the right-field line. He might have reached third had a fan (a Mariners fan no less) not picked up the baseball, forcing Seager to stop at second due to fan interference.
Nevertheless, the double still scored a runner from second and collected his third double of the day. With it, Seager became the 22nd Mariner in history to smack that many doubles in a game. Since, only Leonys Martin has hit three doubles in one day.
In the 7th, Seager would draw a walk and eventually score and then in the 8th he would knock a base-hit to left field to cap off his perfect 4-4 day. It would be the 1st of his 11 times that he’s hit 1.000 in a game.
We know that Seager has had some great games in all his years with the Mariners, so let us know if you think we got it right or if we picked the wrong games. You can reach us through the comments section below or on Twitter at SodoMojoFS.
On Monday we’ll move to the outfield and announce who our all-time great right fielder. Will we select Ichiro? Buhner? Or maybe a dark horse?
