Cole Young sparks Mariners' ninth-inning rally to beat Twins

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Apr 29, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS – Cole Young couldn’t hide the grin as he stood at first base.

Over in the third-base dugout at Target Field, his teammates were screaming and celebrating his latest accomplishment.

Young couldn’t help but feel like he might have just stolen a victory away from the Twins and given it to his team on Wednesday afternoon.

With one out in the top of the ninth and the Mariners trailing by a run, Young, who already had a game-tying double in the seventh inning, delivered when needed once again in Seattle’s eventual 5-3 victory.

With runners on second and third and the infield playing in on the grass to cut the run at home, Young made a lunging swing on a 2-2 splitter from reliever Eric Orze that was running away from him.

Young was able to get just enough of the pitch, which was about three inches off the outside part of the plate, somehow sending a slow bouncing ball with an exit velocity of 65 mph past Orze and then through the infield for a seeing-eye single.

Randy Arozarena, who was running on contact, raced home with the tying run while pinch runner Leo Rivas scored from second for a one-run lead.

Seattle tacked on another run with Cal Raleigh’s deep sac fly to right-center.

Andres Muñoz closed out the victory with a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth.

With the win, the Mariners won their second straight road series and finished the road trip with a 5-1 record. They moved to back to .500 at 16-16 for the first time since April 2 when they were 4-4.

The outing was somewhat clouded with reliever Matt Brash leaving the game with an apparent injury just two pitches into the eighth inning.

Twins starter Taj Bradley stymied the Mariners offense for most of his outing. The right-hander worked seven innings, allowing two runs on four hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. He threw a whopping 114 pitches in his outing.

Kirby ended his outing in a disappointing fashion. With his pitch count nearing 100 in the sixth inning, he issued a two-out walk to Matt Wallner, who he had struck out in his previous two at-bats.

It forced manager Dan Wilson to go to his bullpen.

Right-handed Eduard Bazardo needed just two pitches to end the sixth, getting Brooks Lee to hit a soft comebacker to the mound.

Kirby’s final line: 5 2/3 innings pitched, two runs allowed on eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts.