Dominic Canzone's mammoth homer rescues Mariners in comeback win over Rangers

Adam Jude, The Seattle Times on Jul 26, 2026

Published in Baseball

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ARLINGTON, Texas — What a swing.

Almost instantly, Dominic Canzone dropped his bat and admired the flight of the ball. He knew what he’d just done, and so did everyone else inside Globe Life Field.

Canzone’s three-run home run flipped the score in the seventh inning and flipped the Seattle Mariners’ fortunes in this series — and, perhaps, beyond — giving the M’s their first lead in this pivotal four-game series and sending them to a 6-4 victory over the Texas Rangers on Sunday afternoon.

It’s not a stretch to suggest Canzone’s blast — a dead-pull 400-foot shot to right field, 111 mph off the bat off Texas reliever Cole Winn — was the most important swing of the season for the Mariners, who were, to be frank, an out-of-sorts mess coming into Sunday.

Canzone’s swing might have delivered the Mariners’ most important win of the season, too.

The larger emotional swing Canzone provided his team probably can’t be fully realized just yet. We’ll need to see how the this team responds in the coming days and weeks, but this was the sort of game-changing — season-changing? — shift the M’s offense has been longing for for quite some time.

“It was obviously a big moment,” Canzone said. “It was nice to just get the team in front and get a win.”

Over the previous five days, the M’s had fallen from first to third place in the AL West. They’d lost four straight, saw one of their beloved hitting coaches dismissed and looked largely uncompetitive in the first two games of this series against a division rival they hadn’t beaten in five tries in this ballpark.

If nothing else, Canzone offered a chance to exhale — a moment to celebrate, to relax, after a challenging few days, and a challenging week ahead.

It was Canzone’s team-leading 16th homer of the season, and it could not have come at a better time.

“A lot of relief,” M’s starter Logan Gilbert said. “That’s what we needed right there, especially in that situation in the game, that late. That was a pretty dramatic way to do it.”

The Mariners have been the worst offense in baseball the past six weeks, clubbing just 28 homers in their previous 34 games.

For a team that has, over the past handful of years, relied on homers as much as any team for run production, it has been a rather shocking downturn in slugging. As a result, the offense has predictably struggled to sustain any sort of offensive momentum, prompting the dismissal of assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes a day before the start of this series.

Canzone was as close to Magallanes as anyone with the Mariners, and the Mariners’ slugger was visibly upset about the decision.

None of the players who spoke about Magallanes over the weekend agreed with his dismissal. Club president Jerry Dipoto said Saturday that the coaching change was intended as a way to shake-awake the offense.

The Mariners offense looked largely lost again Saturday in a 7-1 loss to the Rangers, during which the first batters in the M’s lineup combined to go 1 for 19.

The first six innings Sunday produced only one more run against Rangers starter Jacob deGrom.

Trailing 3-1, the Mariners finally broke through in the seventh.

Colt Emerson and Cole Young had back-to-back one-out singles off lefty Tyler Alexander.

Julio Rodríguez then flew out on the first pitch from Winn, bringing up Canzone.

Winn missed badly with his first two pitches, a splitter and cutter. On a 2-0 pitch, Canzone then golfed a low splitter and obliterated it. He flipped his bat and watched the ball sail into the right-field seats.

“I got up 2-0 pretty quickly,” Canzone said. “With (runners) at first and second there, you know he’s got to come in the zone with something. They’ve been throwing me soft pretty much the whole series. Not that I was necessarily sitting on it, but just trying to get something elevated and get it in the air.”

Randy Arozarena followed with a 400-foot homer of his own into the home bullpen beyond the wall in right-center field. It was his 12th of the season, and that made it 5-3.

The first six batters combined for 12 of the Mariners’ 14 hits Sunday, with Young (2 for 5, two runs), Canzone (3 for 5, four RBI), Arozarena (3 for 5) and Josh Naylor (2 for 5) each posting multiple hits.

“Especially coming from behind and struggling a little bit offensively, obviously, this is a step in the right direction,” Canzone said. “We need to come out tomorrow and do the exact same thing.”

After the Rangers got within 5-4 in the eighth, Canzone delivered again in the top of the ninth with a double into the right-field corner, scoring Rodriguez from first base.

“Offense can be contagious, and that’s the hope, that this sparks a fire,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said.

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