'A shot in the arm': Long's HR lifts Mariners

SEATTLE -- For the second straight game, Shed Long Jr. came to the plate with the outcome hanging in the balance. And for the second straight time, he crushed the game-winning homer.

Long blasted a 418-foot shot -- the 7,000th home run in franchise history -- to straightaway center in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s 2-1 victory over the Rockies, Seattle’s eighth in its past nine games. On Sunday, he crushed a walk-off grand slam that secured a four-game sweep of the defending American League champion Rays.

The Mariners advanced to three games above .500 (39-36) for the first time since May 7, when they were 18-15. And over the past calendar month, their 18 wins are tied for the second most in the Majors, trailing only the Astros, Brewers and Giants, who each have 19 in that stretch.

It’s an incredibly long season with more than half of the schedule still ahead, but this homestand has offered trajectory-changing moments. And within this period, Long has perhaps changed his own trajectory as well.

Nine months removed from a right shin stress fracture that put his immediate and long-term future in question, Long is looking more and more like his 2019 self, when he was the darling of Spring Training and a September callup that the Mariners were touting for the starting second-base job in '20.

He’s had almost a calendar year, a lengthy road to recovery coupled with uncertainty of what and where his role might be in Seattle when he did return to the field -- but returning to that 2019 form, and beyond, has been at the forefront of his mind throughout it all.

"I've made a lot of mistakes that I could learn from," Long said. "So that's really the thing. I'm just growing every day, just getting better and just growing as a player, growing as a person.

"I'm trying to come in and be the best version of me that I can be every day, no matter what -- not just the 2019 version. I'm trying to just be the best version of me. I want to be better than the 2019 version."

Beyond the big-time results Long has produced, and it’s hard to top the drama he’s injected into T-Mobile Park in recent days, manager Scott Servais touted Long’s plate approach since he rejoined the team on June 7. There were times in 2020, when Long hit .171/.242/.291 in 34 games, where he admittedly was selling out for power and wound up being too predictable and pull-heavy.

“I've been really impressed [with] how he's hung in on some pretty good left-handed pitching,” Servais said. “The only way to do that is to give up a little something, and that's what he's doing. He's just trying to stay in the middle of the field, and he hit a ball about 400-some feet tonight in the middle of the field, so it's all good.”

It’s hard to understate the level of unknown that Long re-entered the big leagues with two weeks ago, given that he’d been shut down multiple times in Spring Training. It was also unclear how much of his tough 2020 was due to his shin.

Would he be able to effectively stop and start his momentum playing defense? How would he be able to handle left field now that Dylan Moore has firmly taken over at second base? And how much would the swing look like it did before the injury?

"I have been impressed, no question about it," Servais said. "You don't know what you're going to get.

"Keep in mind, he'd been out for quite some time. He had a major injury. We had to take care of that leg. It was something that was way worse than any of us thought it was, and it takes a while to get back from that. But he looks great now. He's running good. How he's moving around in the outfield, more than adequate. And we'll see him at second base here and there as well. So, really, he's given us a real shot in the arm.”