With nothing left to play for for either team, tonight’s game was about a few things: looking for Cal to hit 61 (he did not), getting Harry Ford his first big-league start and possibly hit (he singled!), and trying to defeat the Dodgers after facing two straight sweeps against them (womp womp). Unfortunately, the Mariners couldn’t do that even against the Dodgers’ B-squad, losing 5-3 on a night where the pitching made mistakes and the offense failed to capitalize on the Dodgers’ pitching mistakes.
It was another de facto home game for the Dodgers, as once again fans in Dodgers blue took advantage of the team’s biennial visit to the Great Northwest and packed the park, making T-Mobile once again feel like neutral ground—and by the end of the game, much more like a Dodgers home game. The spring training vibes persist, but colder and less fun.
Logan Gilbert, in his final regular-season tune-up, looked fine. He didn’t quite reach George Kirby’s lofty numbers from last night but recorded a perfectly respectable 12 whiffs with five strikeouts in five innings, throwing 14 of 19 first-pitch strikes. One area of concern was his splitter, which wound up spiked in front of home plate more often than is comfortable and more challenging than necessary for Harry Ford, who drew the absolute toughest first start possible with this pitching staff with Gilbert on the mound. Postgame, however, Gilbert was highly complimentary of his young catcher.
“Harry did a great job,” said Gilbert. “From the scouting report to the game plan on, very prepared, knew what he wanted to do, did a ton of reasearch on each hitter but condensed it, and then on the field, really good blocks behind the plate with that splitter, slider…I didn’t always make it easy on him and he did a good job back there. Sequencing was great I kind of shook off here and there because I was picky trying to get to certain pitches but I could have easily just let him do his thing and I think all the pitch calling was really good.”
For all that good work gotten in (spring training cliche, check), there was one big mistake pitch tonight from the battery, when Gilbert hung a slider to Dalton Rushing, who crushed the pitch with a runner on to give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.
The Mariners offense scattered some hits against the Dodgers but couldn’t push anything across until they got a chance to see old frenemy Andrew Heaney, replacing starter Tyler Glasnow, in the bottom of the fifth. Randy “Ichiro” Arozarena led off with his second swinging-bunt base hit of the game; he was replaced on the bases by Cal Raleigh, as the Dodgers deliberately dropped an infield fly ball (once again tacky!). Julio singled, and then Jorge Polanco told the Dodgers where they could stick their gamesmanship in a meaningless penultimate game of the season:
But interspersed with the just-getting-our-work-in innings were innings of real meaning. Logan Evans made his return to the big-league club after being sidelined with elbow inflammation and looked sharp over his three innings of work. After an easy-breezy sixth inning, the Dodgers did tag him for a run on some bad-luck sequencing in the seventh: Michael Conforto dinked a fly ball (EV: 70 mph) into left field, moved to third on a single on a sweeper off the plate that Enrique Hernandez—who seems to like hitting in Seattle and nowhere else—poked into right field (EV: 76 mph). He then scored the tying run of the game on a wild pitch, a changeup Evans spiked in the dirt that Ford had no chance to corral. Evans returned for the eighth, going deeper in the game than I expected after his two short rehab outings in Tacoma (one and 1.1 innings respectively), and worked a scoreless inning against the top of the Dodgers lineup, working around a walk to Freddie Freeman with more weak-contact outs. Building up your innings against the Dodgers at the big-league level isn’t for the faint of heart, but Evans showed tonight that he can be a valuable asset out of the Mariners bullpen in the post-season.
The Dodgers bullpen has been a source of much agita lately but was sharp again tonight, mowing down the Mariners: nine straight strikeouts to end the game, yikes. Meanwhile, Mariners pitchers not named Logan didn’t have a great time tonight, as Andrés Muñoz was shaky coming out of the ‘pen in the ninth, issuing two straight walks to lead off the inning, both of which came around to score. Sure, these games are meaningless, but that doesn’t mean they should be so un-fun to watch. The Mariners will try to avoid being swept by the Dodgers for a third straight season tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s relieve one of the only good parts of this game: Harry Ford’s night. Ford got his first hit in his first at-bat, in front of the home crowd (including his mom!), who gave him a standing ovation. The Atlanta-area-born Ford, who grew up rooting for Freddie Freeman, also got a special congratulations from Freeman both behind the dish and when he went to stand at first base after his hit. (Harry also tagged a ball pretty well in his third at-bat: 101 off the bat, but unfortunately right at the centerfielder.) So this meaningless night of baseball at least had meaning for one Mariner, and a pretty sweet one at that.
