The Mariners finally broke through their three-run cap to score five runs in a game, but a bullpen meltdown in the eighth meant the Mariners took a loss anyway in the season finale against the Guardians, 6-5. The loss means the Mariners fall out of first place in the AL West, meaning Mariners fans don’t even have “at least we’re in first place!” as a comforting balm in the face of one of the toughest losses of the season so far.
The five-run inning will be what undid the Mariners on the scoreboard,
but the offense had multiple opportunities to put this game out of reach and failed to capitalize. The Mariners left 14 runners on base today, ranging from the standard – a J.P. Crawford leadoff single stranded in the first, a one-out Cal Raleigh walk stranded in the fifth – to the truly excruciating: back-to-back singles stranded in the fourth; an inning-ending double play in the eighth stranding Julio at third. It seems counterintuitive to fault the offense on a day when they scored more runs than they have in the past two weeks, but had the offense converted a few more of these opportunities earlier, the situation in the eighth might have played out very differently.
The Mariners did score three off Guardians starter Gavin Williams, in their usual fashion of scoring early but not delivering the kill shot. They small-balled around a run in the second off a pair of singles from their catching tandem, Cal Raleigh (DHing today) and Mitch Garver, and then got another two runs in the third: Julio Rodríguez took a one-out walk and scored on a Josh Naylor double, and then Naylor scored on what should have been a routine Randy Arozarena groundout, mishandled by Guardians shortstop Brayan Rocchio. A particularly frustrating footnote is the Guardians played shoddy infield defense all day, but ultimately the Mariners weren’t able to capitalize enough on those mistakes; this inning ended without further damage, despite a Cal Raleigh walk, as neither of the Mariners’ young infielders were able to cash in on that traffic on the bases; Colt Emerson had a particularly rough at-bat, seeing just one pitch in the zone but striking out anyway.
This game was a particularly brutal shake for Emerson Hancock, who was solid today, navigating around trouble and helping himself out with some defensive plays that gave Bryan Woo, the Mariners’ best fielding pitcher, a run for his money.
Hancock didn’t have the most swing-and-miss stuff against the lefty-heavy Guardians lineup, but he was able to efficiently navigate around minimal traffic all day. The Guardians were able to scrape a run off him in the fifth thanks to some bad-BABIP-luck weakly-hit singles, but Hancock managed to wiggle out of a bases-loaded no-outs situation, allowing just one run on a sacrifice fly.
Not only did Hancock limit the damage in the fifth, but fighting through that inning meant he was able to come back out for the sixth and get another two outs for his bullpen before walking Cooper Ingle. With the Mariners clinging to a three-run lead, Dan Wilson opted to bring in Eduard Bazardo, who immediately gave up a double to pinch-hitter Daniel Schneemann on a sinker located dead red. Bazardo didn’t have great command today, spraying the ball around against pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey and going to a full count, but was able to quell the threat by getting Bailey to chase after a nasty biting sweeper.
The Mariners were able to get that run right back, again capitalizing on Guardians mistakes. With former Mariner Shawn Armstrong on in the sixth, Robles reached on a bunt, then stole second and third, realizing Armstrong wasn’t paying any attention to him. Julio then brought Robles home on a weakly-hit ball that didn’t leave the infield, again poorly handled by Travis Bazzana at second, who had an absolutely brutal series defensively. But again, the Mariners weren’t able to extend the lead against lefty Tim Herrin, who came in for Armstrong and immediately hit Naylor with a pitch; Arozarena went after the second pitch he saw and pounded it on the ground to the Guardians’ one sure-handed infielder, Gabriel Arias at third, for the inning-ender.
That lack of adding on would loom large in the eighth, after the Mariners squandered yet another opportunity in the seventh against former Mariner Matt Festa. Again, the Mariners had two runners on, and again, they failed to convert that traffic into runs, with Arozarena hitting into an inning-ending double play. Gabe Speier was able to knock the Guardians down in the bottom of the seventh, but that left the eighth.
With the bottom of the lineup coming up and Muñoz as “the ninth inning guy” per Dan Wilson, the Mariners sent in Michael Rucker. On the one hand, Wilson’s options were limited: Bazardo and Speier had already pitched, José Ferrer was down after pitching the last two nights, Nick Davila has poor splits against lefties, and the six-man rotation has already shorted the pen an arm, leaving Rucker and lefty Josh Simpson, recently returned from Tacoma. Both of them would pitch in this inning. Neither would pitch well.
If you’ve been a Mariners fan a while, you already know how this went. I don’t need to describe each agonizing detail, and you probably don’t want to read it. There’s no value to be extracted from examining why each of these pitchers failed. It was a late-innings spring training game, but played in late June instead. If you’re really dead-set on imagining it, here’s a visual representation:
By the end of the inning, the Guardians led, 6-4. The Mariners would claw one of those runs back in the ninth against Guardians closer Cade Smith – Cole and Colt teaming up for back-to-back singles, a weak ray of sunshine on a dark day, and Robles again making Bazzana reconsider life at the keystone – but it almost felt even more insulting to lose by one run, especially coming in on Bazzana’s umpteenth fielding miscue of the series, like pointing up the fact that even spotted shoddy infield defense, the Mariners still couldn’t overcome their fatal flaws of non-clutch-hitting and bullpen implosion.
Losing a game that’s winnable is always frustrating, but with the way the team has been playing lately, today’s game feels like salt in the wound. Breaking out of the prison of three-or-fewer runs scored only to lose feels not so much like a finger on the monkey paw curling down, but the Mariners taking the monkey paw and beating fans over the head with it – the latest not-fun entry in the captain’s log of what has been, so far, an almost wholly unenjoyable season.
