SEATTLE – The barrage started near the end of the quarterfinals, as Julio Rodriguez strode to the plate at his T-Mobile Park home office and stepped into the batter’s box. The crowd considered the setting—homegrown Mariners superstar, Home Run Derby participant, one year after the same event propelled him toward superstardom but amid an iffy second season, at least relative to his first.
Oh, how that setting amplified the stakes. His “home” version of the Home Run Derby cut both ways, lending familiarity and adding pressure, too. The crowd rose, unsurely at first, in pockets of cautious optimism, in a place where optimism generally borders on delusion.
Rodriguez went without a hat, or a headband; proof, perhaps, of the comforts home presented him Monday night. He swung and swung; the motion compact, smooth, consistent and bordering on poetic. With each swing, more of the crowd stood, more cheered and more phones were hurriedly pulled from so many pockets. Then the chants started. Ju-li-o! Ju-li-o! Ju-li-o!
