For all the talk about how the Mariners have put together a powerful lineup, they’ve also at times this season been maddeningly inconsistent. While the nightmarish offensive outages of 2024 do seem to be largely behind the team, their freefall over this road trip has brought back unpleasant memories of fans finding other things to do during offensive half-innings as they’ve been, well, offensive. Tonight was maybe the worst offender, as the Mariners were hapless against Chris Sale, who throttled
the Mariners hitters over six and two-thirds innings with his deadly slider and a velocity spike due to his long layoff from injury, striking out nine hitters, mostly on the slider. Oh days of double-digit strikeouts, how I haven’t missed you.
Things looked rough for Logan Gilbert in the first, and maybe battling a team other than the 2025 Braves the damage would have been worse. Jurickson Profar led off with a double, and then Gilbert consistently missed his spots to Matt Olson, walking him on six pitches. It wasn’t entirely Logan’s fault that what should have been called strike three on Ozzie Albies was instead ruled a ball, and Albies singled on the next pitch, but it did load the bases with no outs. Gilbert was able to wiggle out of trouble, mostly, striking out Drake Baldwin on a good splitter with north-south action, and then Ha-Seong Kim pounced on the first pitch he saw for a sac fly—something that could have been way worse considering it was a 95.6 mph fastball dead red. Gilbert rebounded to strike out Michael Harris to end the inning, again on the split, this time one that ran more east-west.
The Mariners actually showed signs of life in the third. Dominic Canzone led off with another strong at-bat against a tough lefty; it didn’t end in his favor, but he competed well throughout, working Sale for seven pitches and laying off the slider outside before flying out on a ball that looked like it might fall in for a hit but Profar made a solid running catch on. Leo Rivas followed that up with a good at-bat of his own, getting ahead of Sale before using all his power to hit a ground-rule double. Luke Raley, also battling as a lefty, hit the ball but right at centerfielder Michael Harris, but Randy Arozarena got hit by a pitch to extend the inning. But Cal Raleigh, despite coming up with the Mariners’ first hit of the day in the first inning and the only ball so far hit over 95 mph, went after a slider below the zone for a soft flyout, killing the threat.
The first triple-digit hit of the night came, as expected, from Jorge Polanco in the fourth, who shot a single at 105.5 through the six, but was stranded at first because once again, the Mariners couldn’t push a runner across. They avoided that problem in the fifth by going down 1-2-3 on three straight strikeouts, giving Sale seven though five innings.
Logan Gilbert answered back in the fifth, allowing his own triple-digit hit on a leadoff double to the nine-hole hitter Nacho Alvarez on a poorly-located 1-0 fastball. But Gilbert buttoned it up after that, putting down the top of the lineup in order: he struck out Profar flailing wildly after a splitter running away, battled back from a 3-0 count against Olson to coax a flyout on a well-located fastball in, and then getting Albies to make an out for the first time that day on a soft groundout.
Unfortunately, Gilbert’s lineup again couldn’t give him anything for his efforts—although Cal was robbed of a double by a diving slide from Profar, who continues to be absolutely annoying—with the top of their own lineup going down 1-2-3 in the sixth. To Gilbert’s credit, he answered back by blowing through the middle of the order on seven pitches. After a shaky start, it was a great performance from Gilbert
The Mariners finally gave Gilbert some* run support in the seventh. Polanco, one of two Mariners who saw Sale well, hit a one-out single, and then the Braves made a head-scratcher decision, pulling Sale after he got Garver to fly out because…they’re scared of Dominic Canzone? Rightfully so, though, because Canzone promptly singled off the new lefty reliever Dylan Lee, moving Polanco to second, and then Hero Leo came up with another key base hit, scoring Polo on a solid single up the middle. All hail Leo!
*one is technically some
However it was then time for the Mariners’ own head-scratching decision. We’ve all wondered when Harry Ford would finally get to make his big-league debut and for whatever reason, the team decided it was now, with two outs in a tied game and in place of first baseman Luke Raley. Ford immediately struck out on three pitches, because of course he did. Dead Dove, Do Not Eat, things of that nature. No shade to Ford, because that’s about as opposite of a soft landing as a player making his debut can have, but it fantastically didn’t work out, if only because subbing for Raley meant the Mariners then had to pull J.P. Crawford off the bench and move Eugenio Suárez to play first base for the third time in his career, where he immediately made an error next inning because of course (luckily it did not hurt the Mariners). Just a truly head-scratching sequence of events.
The Mariners failed to get anything going against the first righty they saw all day, former Rockie Tyler Kinley, making this a good time to point out that today the top four hitters in the lineup combined for one hit (in the first inning), one hit by pitch, no walks, and seven strikeouts. Gross, guys.
The Mariners’ offensive ineptitude finally came home to roost in the eighth, when Gabe Speier had his worst inning of…the season, maybe? What’s most maddening about it is it wasn’t even that he pitched particularly badly. The nightmare inning started with a ground ball double to Profar on a well-executed slider that probably should have been a single with better defense in left field. The game might have been close, but in the battle of left fielders Atlanta was the clear winner. The bad luck continued with a ground ball from Olson that hit off the mound, scoring Profar from second and putting the Braves ahead, 2-1. That would have been enough to win the Braves the game, given how the Mariners offense was playing, but the Braves took advantage and poured on another pair of insurance runs. Albies pounced on the first pitch he saw and hit it over Canzone’s head, and Dom crashed into the wall trying to track it, allowing Albies a triple. Drake Baldwin then scalded a pitch past a diving Jorge Polanco to bring in a fourth run, putting the game well out of reach for the Mariners, who went down without a fight in the ninth against old AL West enemy Raisel Iglesias.
It’s frustrating to waste a great start from Gilbert. Chris Sale is a tough customer, but at this point in the season, the Mariners hitters have to play better on the increasingly rare nights when they get a solid outing from their starter. They didn’t, and they haven’t, and if you’re a Mariners fan feeling doom and gloom, nothing that happened tonight makes you feel any better about this team’s post-season chances. As far as it feels like the team has come, nights like tonight make it feel like the 2024 team’s problems aren’t so far away, while the post-season feels even farther away.
