With Lou Piniella in attendance for tonight’s game, it should have been obvious we’d end up with an ejection. But with Dan Wilson helming the Mariners these days, it should have been equally obvious that any ejection would be more an episode of the Ump Show than anything any of the Mariners did wrong.
After an egregious called strike against Cole Young, the smallest man who ever lived turned to the Mariners dugout and ejected, well, someone. Nobody seemed quite sure who or why. Dan Wilson came out to figure
out what in the Sam Hill was happening. Dan seemed pretty chill to me, but Walter Sobchak tossed him too. At that point the broadcast cut to Sweet Lou at exactly the right moment:
Dan did not respond by blowing his top, giving more of a “what on earth is even happening here” vibe. After he left the field, Manny Acta, now acting manager, went out to the umpire, appearing to ask a question. Bruce Banner seemed to point vaguely at the dugout and signal something like, “Look, I ejected someone, and I’m not backing down now. You figure out who it should be.”
After the dust settled, we eventually figured out that Dominic Canzone was the “guilty” party. I’d say that was anti-Italian, but he was so clearly channeling Sonny Corleone’s energy tonight that I’ll give him a pass on that. Whatever it was Canzone did to make this prima donna so upset, I’m on his side and he gets tonight’s Sun Hat Award for it.
Meanwhile, Bryan Woo was losing battles to such titans as Hunter Fedducia. It was the least sharp he’d been all season, even counting that blow up in Sacramento. His three walks are not just a season high for Woo, but the most batters he’s walked in a game since September of 2023. And he got to that point before recording the first out of the third. Amazingly, though, he’d only given up two runs through three, so when Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, and Jorge Polanco each hit solo shots in the fourth inning, it actually gave the Mariners the lead.
Woo seemed to pull it together, striking out the side in the fourth, and retiring the top of the lineup in order in the fifth. But Junior Caminero tied the game at three with his 40th home run to lead off the sixth, making him the fourth player ever with a 40-homer season at age 21 or younger, and chasing Woo from the game. When Caleb Ferguson ran into a little trouble in relief, Manny Gonzalez missed an important strike-three call, and Ferguson instead left the game with the bases loaded for Eduard Bazardo. Thanks to a great play from Josh Naylor, the Rays had to settle for just one run out of the situation, but that run gave them the lead.
The Mariners had a chance to take the lead right back when Eugenio Suárez and Jorge Polanco reached to lead off the next inning. But even with Dan Wilson out of the game, the Mariners still threw an out away by ordering Luke Raley to lay down a sacrifice bunt. About a month ago, when this tactic worked to beat the White Sox, I explained why that can be a good choice, despite the modern game’s eschewance of the sac bunt. But this wasn’t one of those times. Just like when they did it against the Sox, the sac bunt maximized the odds of scoring a single run, while lowering the odds of scoring more than one run. But while it was a good idea in that game, three things make this situation different:
1. The Mariners were trailing rather than tied. They needed more than one run.
2. It was the top of the seventh rather than the bottom of the eighth. There was less point in maximizing the odds of getting the single run because they couldn’t then just turn the game over to Ándres Muñoz.
3. Rays pitcher Edwin Uceta was all over the place. Raley could easily have walked himself.
But the Mariners played to get the single run, which to their credit they got, on a sac fly by Cole Young. But when you play for one run, one run is probably all you’ll get. So the Mariners went to the bottom of the seventh tied at 4-4. I felt like they’d at least get through that half inning seeing as Gabe Speier was brought in to pitch. But he looked uncomfortable from the jump and gave up a pair of runs. To no one’s surprise but Manny Acta’s, the Mariners needed more than the one run they’d gotten.
The Mariners got one back in the ninth, but I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse since it makes it their third one-run loss of this road trip, which is only five games old. Maybe Lou can give them a pep talk.
