We said in the series preview that the strategy for winning against the Padres and their super-bullpen is simple: build a big lead early and then hang on to it for dear life as the Padres deploy terrifying arm after terrifying arm. But the Mariners got a bit confused today, instead giving up a big lead early, then battling their way back, before their own bullpen couldn’t hold the lead and they dropped their first game of the season to the Padres, 7-6.
To be fair, the Mariners offense made a game
out of something that looked like a surefire loss early. The game started with Fernando Tatís Jr. tattooing a ball 112 miles per hour for a double. Okay, fine, hitting the ball hard is kind of Tatís’s whole thing. But Castillo was lobbing fastballs—four-seamers and sinkers—up at 93.3 mph, well within clobbering range. Castillo got his next two outs, getting Luis Arraez to groundout and striking out Manny Machado swinging on a 94.7 mph four-seamer that showed some good carry up in the zone, and it seemed like the leadoff double would go for naught. But Castillo lost the handle after that, walking swing-happy Ryan O’Hearn on five pitches, none particularly competitive.
A bad-BABIP-luck bloop RBI single in an 0-2 count from Xander Bogaerts brought in a run, and again, if Castillo had been able to tamp the damage down there, this game looks very different. But once again, Castillo couldn’t get a hold of his pitches, walking Sheets on some sliders that slid way too far out and some changeups that did not change anything other than ending with Sheets standing at first base. Then Castillo made a very costly mistake to Ramon Laureano in an 1-2 count, leaving a 94.2 mph four-seamer up and in the middle of the zone for a grand slam, the one single worst outcome of any pitch. Facing down a 5-0 hole with their starter faltering, it looked like a long night for Mariners fans at the ballpark—especially considering that of the 35,910 fans at the park (a lot for a Tuesday!), a significant number of them were Padres fans.
Adding to the early feelings of doom: Padres starter Dylan Cease, who has struggled on the road this year, looked dominant the first time through the order. The Mariners finally got something going against him in the fourth, breaking up a perfecto, although it came with two outs: Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor hit back-to-back singles, and then Eugenio Suárez walked to load the bases. Unfortunately, Jorge Polanco couldn’t repeat his heroics from last night, grounding out to end the inning and the Mariners’ best threat on the day so far.
To his credit, Castillo buckled down after his dreadful first inning. It wasn’t exactly smooth sailing, as he needed 87 pitches to cover just five innings, but while his velo didn’t totally rebound, his location did; he stopped missing quite so big, only issuing one more walk over the next four innings, and switched to a more secondary-heavy pitch mix that had the fastball-hunting Padres on their heels more. That’s something he’ll need to be able to do going forward, because this decrease in velocity follows a trend, but was especially stark tonight:
90.8 is the lowest velocity fastball I’ve ever seen Castillo throw. More worryingly, Castillo couldn’t point to anything in particular postgame causing his difficulties; he said his arm felt good, his body felt good, and he was “surprised” to see how low his pitches were reading.
But ever the veteran, Castillo pulled it together and held down the fort for the next four innings. Meanwhile, these 2025 Mariners keep coming. J.P. Crawford checked in with a shift-beating hit with one out in the sixth, leading to dreams of early-season J.P. when he was spraying balls all over the field, followed by Cole Young putting up one of his Professional At-Bats (TM) and working a full-count walk against Cease despite having been consigned to the bench for the last several games while the Mariners suffered through the parade of lefties. Then with one swing of the bat, Randy Arozarena changed the tenor of this game.
Arozarena had barely missed a homer off Cease in his first at-bat, pouncing on the first pitch he saw—a sinker at the bottom of the zone—but sending it just foul into the right-field seats. The second time up, Randy didn’t miss, ambushing first-pitch again but this time yanking a 94 mph sinker into Edgar’s.
That’s number 25 of 2025 for Randy, and I think that’s beautiful. Even more beautiful, the Mariners kept up the pressure: Cal Raleigh worked a walk, which forced Cease out of the game at 87 pitches (shoutout again to the J.P. and CY duo and the 12 pitches they consumed between the two of them). That’s particularly impressive considering Cease had 19 whiffs tonight, tied for second in MLB.
However, even with Cease out, it’s no picnic against the Padres’ bullpen, one of the best in the game—if not the best. Julio kept things going with a single against Jason Adam, but Josh Naylor flew out for the second out of the inning. That brought up Geno, who has been on a little bit of a hot streak lately. That continued tonight:
But the Padres came right back against Caleb Ferguson, in to face the lefties at the bottom of the lineup. Ferguson has been solid-if-not-spectacular for the Mariners this season, and tonight showed the gap between those two adjectives when facing a pesky, powerful Padres lineup. Gavin Sheets got a hold of a sinker well off the plate and poked it past a diving Josh Naylor for a double, and then Laureano—again—laced a fastball at the top of the zone for another double, putting runners at second and third with no outs. Jake Cronenworth probably should have been punched out on a pair of good but borderline pitches, and instead came up with an RBI single, and then catcher Freddy Fermin sac-bunted home the go-ahead run.
Dan Wilson was then forced to go to Gabe Speier to face the top of the lineup; Tatís flew out, moving the runner to third, and Arraez lined out to end the threat, but the damage was done, and now one of Dan Wilson’s best arms, was, too. It’s a frustrating outcome considering how the offense had battled back, and more frustrating knowing Speier had to spend some precious bullets anyway in order to cap the damage, and even more frustrating because Eduard Bazardo worked a clean seventh and maybe it’s time to hand him the reins in leverage situations no matter what, and yes the entire Padres lineup counts as a leverage situation.
Meanwhile, the Padres bullpen continued to spit out tough pitchers like a hydra chained behind the left-field gate. Following Adam was lefty Adrian Morejon, deployed to face the lefties at the bottom of the Mariners’ lineup. Unlike Ferguson, Morejon did his job with ruthless efficiency, putting down Canzone-Crawford-Young 1-2-3, with no Victor Robles as a pinch-hitter in sight.
After the aforementioned scoreless inning from Bazardo, working around a shift-beating single, the left-field gate spewed forth old friend Mason Miller, someone I’m so used to seeing in the ninth inning I thought the game was over, and in retrospect it basically was. The Mariners didn’t get anything off Miller, but they did make him work: Julio put up one of his best at-bats of the year, working a nine-pitch walk, and Naylor followed with a solid line-drive single. Unfortunately, Geno couldn’t come through a second time, grounding out to end the threat.
Carlos Vargas navigated around some bad BABIP luck and got a well-timed inning-ending double play from Tatís to strand two runners on, and the Padres brought out Jeremiah Estrada to tangle with the bottom of the Mariners’ order. Jorge Polanco led off with a single to right field, but Canzone struck out, Crawford flew out, and Young popped out, sending the top of the order to the ninth to try to play catch-up—provided Vargas could handle one more inning.
Vargas re-enacted Groundhog Day with ground balls, giving up a shift-beating base hit but then getting another inning-ending double play, so it was time for the final boss of the Padres’ Terror Pen: Robert Suarez. Randy battled to a full count, made solid contact to center field, but flew out. Cal Raleigh—to ringing chants of “MVP”—made less solid contact, flying out to left field. That brought up Julio as the Mariners’ last hope, and he—to ringing chants of “Let’s Go Padres”—made solid contact, but flew out to right field. Aesthetically (dis)pleasing. Alas and alack.
Ultimately, with the Astros also losing tonight (against the Rockies! Will wonders never cease) the loss doesn’t damage the Mariners that badly, and after four straight wins against one of the NL’s better teams, it sort of felt like they were due for one. But it’s frustrating to not make up ground, and it’s frustrating when the offense does thrilling things like staging a comeback in front of a packed house, and it’s frustrating to see how close the Mariners came at times to re-tying this game—or, more saliently, not letting the Padres go ahead in the first place. From the perspective of the Padres, though, it must have been very frustrating to get swept by what was at the time an inferior Mariners team at home in May, and then to lose again despite getting out to a big lead early last night, and then almost repeat that exact sequence tonight, despite building a strong offense backed by a DeathPen. Hopefully the Mariners can hand them a little bit of that frustration back tomorrow.
