The Mariners devised their piggyback plan, alternating Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo as starters, so the division would be “equitable,” rotating between which pitchers made the scheduled five-inning start. Today they got a perfectly even split as each pitcher tossed exactly five innings, with exactly 71 pitches for each, as it took the Mariners offense ten innings to polish off a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks, 3-2.
Bryce Miller looked strong, cunningly mixing his pitches against an Arizona team
that likes to hunt the fastball. Miller out-Mized Brewers wunderkind Jacob Misiorowski today, with 17 swinging strikes.
“It’s cool seeing the whiff and the results and the swing and miss on non-fastballs,” Miller said postgame. “I’ve always been the guy with the good fastball and after that, not great. So far this year I think the slider’s performed really well, cutter has been good, splitter has been good, sweeper and curveball, when I’ve thrown them, have been good as well. Seeing the breaking balls and the off-speeds come along has been fun.”
Miller got himself into and out of some trouble in the second. It started, as it so often does, with a one-out five-pitch walk to Ryan Waldschmidt where Miller stubbornly trying to go to the bottom of the zone with a fastball and Waldschmidt kept laying off. Miller pulled out some off-speed to try to retire pesky Ildemaro Vargas, who fouled three straight balls to the pull side before finally pulling a fastball fair into right field for Arizona’s first hit of the day. Miller got some help from Luke Raley, who made a strong throw home on a would-be sac fly to keep a run from scoring, and then struck out Aramis Garcia to end what would be his only real threat of the day. From there, Miller cruised through his five assigned innings, never giving Arizona room to breathe.
Offensively, the Mariners got on the board first in the second thanks to Cole Young. It’s been a tough May for Young, who’s been putting in a lot of work with hitting coordinator Edgar Martínez to relax his grip at the plate and get back to simplifying things. Young got a 91.7 mph fastball right in his lefty loop zone and kept things simple to the tune of 105.4 mph:
The Mariners could have done more in that inning, loading the bases with one out with a pair of singles and a walk, but Julio Rodríguez flew out to shallow center and then a questionable send/base running decision at home saw Jhonny Pereda cut down. Boooooo. On the bright side, they did have Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly at 42 pitches through two innings, which is a plus against the weak contact merchant Kelly. Kelly didn’t have his best command today – he hit Luke Raley in the third, which, understandable, and walked Dom Canzone in the fourth – but was able to navigate around trouble both times and get those weak-contact outs to keep his pitch count in check, with the Mariners again squandering a scoring opportunity in the fourth despite a J.P. Crawford two-out single that sent Colt Emerson from first to third (oh the specific, forgotten joy of having a runner who can go first to third on a shallow line drive to right field), as Julio grounded out softly on a swinging bunt on the first pitch he saw.
Those missed scoring opportunities came back to bite the Mariners when it was time for the piggyback to change over. Luis Castillo, facing the top of the order, walked Ketel Marte and gave up a fluky ground-ball double to Corbin Carroll to put runners on at second and third with one out. It looked like Castillo might escape the inning cleanly despite some shaky command after a play at home, nicely executed by Crawford and Pereda, but a wild pitch from Castillo brought the run in anyway, tying up the game and costing Bryce Miller a win. It wasn’t really Castillo’s fault, instead victimized by some shaky defense – and, in an echo of the last piggyback loss, if the Mariners had scored more during their many chances, it wouldn’t have mattered – but it was still a bummer of a follow-up after Miller had been so brilliant.
Thankfully, Dominic Canzone came through in the sixth with another solo homer to pull the Mariners ahead, getting a hold of a pitch from Kelly that was very similar to the one Young hit out:
But once again the Mariners left a chance to stack runs on the DBacks on the table; after Jhonny Pereda singled and Kelly exited the game, Kevin Ginkel was able to strike out Crawford and Rodríguez to end the threat, giving Castillo again just the one whisper-thin run to work with. Castillo made it until the eighth, but once again fluky luck caught up with him. Pinch-hitter Gabriel Moreno led off the inning with a parachute-job single, and nine-hole hitter Tim Tawa laid down a bunt that was poorly fielded by Pereda (and maybe misdirected by Naylor pointing at second trying to get the lead runner), who overthrew into center to allow the runners to second and third with no outs. Moreno then scored the tying run on a sac fly from Marte. But Castillo was able to get out of it thanks to a groundout and yet another leaping play from Cole Young, quietly the MVP of today’s game.
The Diamondbacks brought in hard-throwing reliever Juan Morillo for the eighth, who had to work around a Dominic Canzone single and a walk to Colt Emerson but was able to strike out Crawford swinging. After Castillo put the middle of the lineup down in the ninth, the DBaks stuck with Morillo, who blew through the top of the lineup, all seemingly swinging for the home run ball.
So once again, the game went to extras, and the Mariners stuck with Castillo, pitching in a Manfred Man situation for the first time. Castillo navigated around some sticky trouble in the top of the tenth, letting Arizona’s ghost runner get to third and walking the pesky Moreno but no more than that, keeping the game tied.
“That’s an inning where if you don’t have experience with it, it does make you a little nervous,” said Castillo postgame. “But the important thing was we were able to keep attacking every hitter. The pitching coach told me, this is your game, finish it, let’s go, and those words motivated me to go out there and do that.”
Arizona countered with former Yankee Jonathan Loáisiga, who immediately intentionally walked Luke Raley (great bunter) to get to Cole Young (acceptable bunter). Young, who has been solid in clutch situations, was able to put down the sacrifice cleanly, bringing up Victor Robles, who had pinch-run for Canzone back in the eighth. Robles put a swing on the first strike he saw, booping a little lawn dart towards the drawn-in shortstop, who muffed the ball, delivering the Mariners a win and a sweep.
Despite the sturm und drang around the piggyback situation, the Mariners are now 2-1 in those games, and the one loss is pinned more squarely on the offense. It’s quite a different situation now – the Mariners tallied 33 hits in the series sweep against Arizona, and 36 in the series against Oakland, versus a paltry 17 in the series against Kansas City (with 12 of those coming in one game). Today Ryan wrote about how the piggyback experiment has been working, and why it’s been working; it’s true that wins cure all ills, but that’s something that can only happen when the offense pulls its weight, too. Today they did just enough to do that, keeping the good vibes rolling (do piggybacks roll? Jostle? Hitch?) as the Mets come into town to finish off the homestand before a long road trip.
