Facing must-win Game 5, why Seattle's other MVP will be crucial to Mariners' chances

SEATTLE -- It went mostly unnoticed and overshadowed by his teammate's assault on the record books, and lost amid the excitement of his team's prosperity, but Julio Rodriguez put together another 30/30 season this year. He and Bobby Witt Jr. are the only players to do it twice before turning 25, and Rodríguez is the only one, ever, to accumulate 110 home runs and 110 stolen bases through his first four seasons in the major leagues.

As the Seattle Mariners approach a winner-take-all Game 5 of their American League Division Series on Friday, a lot of the pressure will fall on Rodríguez. He has been nothing but a persistent source of speed and power -- and elite center-field defense -- since baseball fans first fell in love with him as a 21-year-old in 2022. And yet, the conversation about him always seems to come back to what he hasn't yet done, who he hasn't yet become.

Those around him can't seem to understand it.

"It's amazing," Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. "Our expectations are so high because of his physical ability, the heights that we've seen. But he's played four years in the big leagues. He's done things that, in some cases, no other player has ever done in his first four years. If you look at what he's accomplished, it ranks up there with the best 23- to 25-year-old players in history. And yet, we still collectively expect more."

The lack of exposure that typically comes with playing for a smaller-market West Coast franchise might factor into that. Residing on the same team as Cal Raleigh in a year when he set a record for home runs by a switch-hitter, a catcher and a Mariner has undoubtedly played a part, too. So have the lofty expectations that came from being so good, so young. But any underappreciation of Rodríguez's accomplishments might also stem from how his seasons play out.

They all start agonizingly slow, consistently making outsiders wonder what has become of one of the sport's greatest talents -- just before pivoting in the other direction. It happened again in 2025, but this time, Dipoto said, "the transition point was different."

"In years past, you could just see it building, and he would take off. This year, there was no prep time. It just happened."

It began July 11, before a road series against the same Detroit Tigers team Rodríguez hopes to knock out of the postseason. The Mariners had just been swept at Yankee Stadium, and Rodríguez was slashing .244/.301/.386. Among the 155 qualified hitters at that point, his OPS ranked 125th. The players had voted him onto his third All-Star team, but Rodríguez, after consulting with some of his veteran teammates, declined. He needed to rest his body, but also clear his mind.

"It was a tough decision," Rodríguez said, "but I think that definitely came with maturity. I would've loved to have been able to go to the All-Star Game and have a lot of fun with the guys, seeing everybody. But on the field, at that moment, I needed a break."

Rodríguez announced his decision on the Friday before that weekend series in Detroit, then went 6-for-12 with 3 home runs and 2 stolen bases in a three-game sweep. From that point forward, he slashed .299/.356/.589 with 21 home runs and 15 stolen bases over a 68-game stretch. His .954 OPS was seventh highest in the majors. His 3.8 fWAR was tied with Geraldo Perdomo for the most among position players. All told, he trailed only Raleigh for the Mariners' lead in home runs (32), trailed only Randy Arozarena in stolen bases (30) and was by far the team's best defensive player with 10 outs above average.

Incorporating a high-tee drill used by Raleigh -- one that kept Rodríguez's hands steady, prevented him from overstriding and ultimately turned a lot of his ground balls into line drives -- helped sync up Rodríguez's mechanics. But bowing out of the All-Star Game, a decision Dipoto saw as a sign of "huge growth" from one of his franchise players, functioned as a mental and emotional release.

"I just feel like everything started to flow after that," Rodríguez said. "I feel like I put myself in a better position mentally, physically, and I feel like that's where everything really clicked for me."

The Mariners have the look of a team that could make a prolonged October run, the type Seattle has not witnessed in a generation. The rotation has rediscovered its dominance from last year, the bullpen has been stout, and the lineup -- still powered by Raleigh and Rodríguez but bolstered by the in-season additions of Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor -- is deeper than it has been in years. But the Mariners' season is nonetheless down to one game.

The Mariners captured their first home playoff win in 24 years on the strength of Rodríguez's double in the eighth inning of Sunday's Game 2, then they put themselves on the brink of advancing with four early runs against Jack Flaherty in Tuesday's Game 3. But Detroit teed off against the Mariners' middle relievers 24 hours later to force a Game 5. AL Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal will start for the Tigers, but the Mariners won when he last took the mound in Game 2 and fared well against him during the regular season. And they'll be back home.

"Everything's in front of us," Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. "These guys have done this all season, where they get in a tough situation and they know exactly what to do -- and they do fight back, and they do bounce back."

Rodríguez has been doing that his entire career.

As a rookie in 2022, he had a dreadful April before taking off and attaining superstar status. In 2023, he saved his season with a prodigious August. In 2024, the scorching-hot stretch took place in July. This year, it was half of July, then all of August and September. Rodríguez has a .737 career OPS in the first half and a .902 career OPS in the second half, a 165-point jump.

"The more games he sees," Mariners right fielder Victor Robles said in Spanish, "the better he gets."

To those around Rodríguez, though, his latest turnaround wasn't so much a recurrence as it was an evolution.

Dipoto, who has known Rodríguez since he entered the organization as a 16-year-old, said he's "in a tranquil, collected, focused state, maybe unlike anything we've ever seen from him." Raleigh sees what he described as a "confident," "on-balance" and "controlled" Rodríguez in the batter's box in recent weeks.

Rodríguez boasted a career-low 21.4% strikeout rate in 2025, 4 percentage points below where he finished last year. He has become better, he said, at maintaining an all-fields approach, with a better feel for when and where to take his shots for pulled home runs. He believes he possesses a better understanding of himself in general, and that skipping the All-Star Game, an event Rodríguez enjoys more than most, spoke to that.

"Your body tells you," Rodríguez said. "You got to be able to have a good relationship with yourself and your body, and be honest with yourself when you feel like things are not going the way you want them to and you want to get better and put yourself in a better spot. You just know. You just got to know yourself to come up with those decisions."