You might peek at the latest lopsided score in a recent string of them for the Mariners and think this game was off the rails right out of the gate. Not so, at least for a little while. Although Jesús Luzardo would easily dispatch Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh on strikes to open the final game of a grueling road trip for Seattle, Julio Rodríguez came through to give the M’s their first lead of the series
.How Julio managed to hit a pitch barely half a foot above the ground that high and that far
defies belief. Per Sarah Langs, it was the lowest pitch a Mariner has dingered on in franchise history since the dawn of pitch tracking (2008), and the lowest pitch period in over fifteen years. Luzardo would quickly lock back in and get Eugenio Suárez swinging, but for the first time in a few days things looked… up?
Alas, the Phillies lineup remained relentless. Trea Turner smoked a 2-1 center-cut fastball from Luis Castillo into the right-center gap, easily scooting into third base with a leadoff triple. Seattle’s slim lead evaporated just six pitches later on a sacrifice fly from Kyle Schwarber, with Castillo then walking Bryce Harper on five pitches and giving up a solid knock to J.T. Realmuto to teeter on the edge of a spiral.
La Piedra, though, dug in, getting both Alec Bohm and Brandon Marsh to expand the zone for a pair of strikeouts – his only two of the evening. It was a similar story in the bottom of the second, with Harrison Bader reaching second base on an infield hit and sailing throw from Geno before coming home on a one-out double from perpetual series pest Bryson Stott, who battled Castillo for nine pitches before hammering a 3-2 fastball off the wall in right to give the Phillies a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Turner singled to put runners on the corners, easily swiping second with Schwarber up, but Donovan Solano smartly threw home on a grounder hit to him the next pitch to force a rare 3-2-5-1 putout – now viewable in .gif form!
A one-out double play in the third kept the Phils off the board, but Max Kepler struck right back with a solo shot to lead off the fourth, and while a Stott single was erased by a Turner (!) double play, Schwarber doubled and Harper worked a second walk to threaten once again to blow the game open. Realmuto, mercifully, flew out to end the frame and Castillo’s outing, and if we’re looking for positives, La Piedra did give up half the amount of runs as his last time out. Despite the tightrope walking, though, it was another start where he surrendered a huge batch of solid contact (ten hits on a dozen hard-hit balls. Yikes!) and couldn’t get deep into the game, with a dip in velocity and plenty of arm side miss to boot. Eduard Bazardo, Caleb Ferguson, and Matt Brash stitched together the next two scoreless, if adventurous frames, and despite the Phillies sending an army of players to the bases, only three would cross through the first six innings.
Not that Jesús Luzardo needed the third run. After the improbably Julio home run, he settled in and then some, facing just two over the minimum in the next five frames while mowing down Mariner after Mariner. Two singles to Mitch Garver and Julio – the latter being erased on an unfortunate caught stealing – and an error that let Randy reach were the only blemishes, and Luzardo tied a career-high with a dozen strikeouts. He collected 21 swings and misses in the process – eleven on his sweeper alone, his most-used pitch today – and looked every bit the top prospect he showed in his early Oakland days.
Despite the dominance, he was lifted for the immortal David Robertson in the seventh, and Eugenio Suárez greeted him with a laser to left to continue his awakening and put the M’s back within one.
The M’s sadly couldn’t break through despite a two-out walk from J.P. Crawford, and the next call to the pen resulted in Tayler Saucedo in charge of keeping a one-run game close. A puzzling choice at first glance, to be sure; the simplest explanation being Saucedo holding serve against the Phillies’ 6-7-8 before bringing in Gabe Speier for the top of the order. Understandable, yes. In practice? Thanks to a combination of ineffective pitching – Sauce opened the frame with an uncompetitive four-pitch walk to Brandon Marsh and a plunk to Bader before surrendering four hard-hit balls – and suspect defense, just one out later, Sauryn Lao was called in to stop the bleeding at five runs in. Lao dutifully got the job done despite a walk to Realmuto, but couldn’t hold off the offensive onslaught in the eighth, allowing a final trio of runs to cross, capped off with Kyle Schwarber’s National League-leading 45th home run.
The M’s have a much-needed for all involved off day tomorrow before kicking off a pair of home series against the A’s and Padres. While the offense certainly struggled during this brutal, nasty, nightmarish road trip, the starting pitching could easily be argued as the bigger culprit, with just one start of the last seven reaching six innings. Thanks to the Astros perfectly timing their slump with Seattle’s, the division remains in reach with just a 1.5 game gap, and the gaggle of Wild Card and Wild Card-adjacent teams have all struggled to pull ahead. A return to the friendly confines of T-Mobile Park could be just what this team needs to shake off this cold run. For now, though, they’ll need to flush these last few series and load up for a brief, if looming homestand.
