Mariners Face Rough Waters in Baltimore, Lose Series with 5-3 Rubber Match Defeat
BALTIMORE, Md. – It was dry, it was wet, then dry again, then wet again and all the way back to dry, but regardless of weather conditions, the Seattle Mariners continued their bad start to the nine-game road trip with a 5-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday, with slow offense and horrendous defense resulting in an early Orioles lead that the Mariners couldn’t recover from.
Logan Evans, Seattle’s starter on the mound, struggled in the fourth inning, all while Baltimore starter Tomoyuki Sugano easily blew down the Mariners for the first half of the ballgame. A rain delay shifted momentum towards the visitors, but they couldn’t get it done in crunch time with runners in scoring position.
Defense Matters
It really changes an inning – and a game – when the defense doesn’t make a play that they should at the pro level. In the first three innings, Logan Evans got some help from his defense, who turned two double plays to shut down potential Oriole attacks and keep the home squad at zero runs until the fourth.
But in the fourth, that defense didn’t come up clutch when it needed to. It was the best chance that the O’s had gotten up to that point, with runners at first and third and one out. Although Evans got the second out, he spiked a 1-2 curveball to Daniel Johnson. It bounced off Garver’s chest and rolled quickly to his side. Evans half-ran to the plate as Jordan Westburg barreled home with the M’s facing a play at the plate.
Garver threw over to Evans, but since Evans was just arriving, the ball bounced around while Westburg slid over the pitcher’s throwing hand and scored without any tag ever being applied to give the Orioles the early lead.
Johnson walked to put runners on the corners once again, and then he and Ryan Mountcastle at third made fools out of the Seattle infield. Johnson took off from first with a deliberately late jump, looking to distract the M’s and allow Mountcastle to dash home. Johnson got in a rundown, but Cole Young had a chance to run at him and apply the tag before any run could score. The M’s had a chance to limit it to one run.
But Young threw to Josh Naylor as he caught up to Johnson just as Mountcastle was speeding down the third base line. Naylor redirected it home for a bang-bang play – and Mitch Garver’s tag was too late. Johnson got to second as the M’s, trying to defend everything, ended up defending nothing. Jeremiah Jackson knocked a single into center to score Johnson for the third run.
There were many, many points where Seattle could have limited the damage. Garver making a better stop, Evans throwing better pitches, Evans getting to the plate faster and not getting his hand squished, Young keeping his eye on the target in the rundown, Garver getting the tag down, or Evans getting Jackson out – all of those would have kept at least a run off the board.`
In any case, Logan Evans’ day was done. He had pitched four innings, given up three runs (two earned), struck out one, and walked four on 70 pitches and 39 strikes.
Positioning Matters
There’s a reason why most infielders in the MLB play at the edge of the outfield grass pretty much always. It gives the fielder a little more time to move over and nab the baseball, turning would-be hits (against fielders playing straight up) into outs. It’s a no-brainer.
For whatever reason, the M’s have trouble doing this. At third base, this is slightly more sensible, as there are bunts to watch out for, so I’ll give the positioning guys that one.
As an example, take Ben Williamson. He very obviously has a tremendous defensive ability, but StatCast’s Outs Above Average doesn’t see him as very exceptional, because his “straight up” positioning meant that he had to use his excellent talent to get to balls that become routine when the third baseman plays 15 feet further back.
It had another big impact in the bottom of the fifth, as Carlos Vargas struggled with his command and the O’s pounced for more runs. With one out in the inning, Vargas walked Jackson Holliday and hit Jordan Westburg, putting on some more traffic and giving the Orioles a chance to put the game away.
Vargas threw Gunnar Henderson a sinker low and away and got a hard ground ball towards third. Had Eugenio Suárez been playing at the edge of the outfield grass, it would have been an inning-ending double play, or at very least, one out would have been made.
But Suárez was playing straight up. He tried to get the ball on a dive, but it rolled into left field. Holliday easily scored and Westburg got to third. Arozarena took way too much time to get the ball in and Henderson got to second. Mountcastle sent off a sacrifice fly for the Orioles’ fifth run, with Arozarena again taking too long to get the ball to the infield and allowing Henderson to third, but Daniel Johnson flew out to end the inning and the Baltimore run scoring spree.
Rain Delay Extends Ordeal
East Coast weather can truly change on a dime. The sky started leaking a little bit in the bottom of the fifth, but by the top of the sixth, water was washing down the warbler-way. As puddles gathered in the infield, it became clear a rain delay was imminent, but it took a surprisingly long time for that delay to be called. Sugano, who had been dealing all game, gave up a hit to Josh Naylor and Julio Rodriguez came to the plate.
By that point, it had to be called. The shower let up once and the tarp came off briefly, but with the infield still wet, it was hurry-up-and-wait in Baltimore. The sky darkened once more, however, and the tarp came back out.
Finally, the rain let up, the tarp came off for the final time, and play was scheduled to resume at 5 PM in Baltimore, almost four hours after first pitch – two hours and 16 minutes after the delay was first called. Sugano had to come off the mound due to the delay and Rico Garcia was the first reliever in for the O’s.
Comeback Falls Short
Rodriguez continued his hot hitting right after the delay ended, blasting a 2-2 fastball off the top of the wall in right center into the now-empty seats beyond. It was a close ball game once more.
Seattle put together some good at-bats in the seventh inning, but nothing came of the potential chance as spare outs were coming into short supply. Crawford slapped a one-out single into left and Arozarena drew an eight-pitch walk, but Naylor grounded out to second and stranded the runners.
Another chance came in the ninth as Dominic Canzone and Mitch Garver led off with singles. Cal Raleigh pinch-hit for Cole Young with one out and drew a walk to load the bases with Arozarena coming to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. Arozarena grounded into what should have been an inning-ending double play, but Jackson Holliday gave the Mariners a lifeline with a bit of hesitation before hitting the bag at second, and so Arozarena beat the throw to first.
But Seattle took no advantage of that lifeline, as Naylor grounded out to give the Orioles a 5-3 victory over a now-slumping Mariners team that only two days prior was threatening to take the big seat in the division.
Bullpen Works Clean Innings Post-Delay
A silver lining in the rain clouds pouring over this game can be found in the performance of the low-leverage guys in the bullpen. Carlos Vargas struggled in the fifth, sure, but after the rain delay concluded, Casey Legumina, Caleb Ferguson, and Jackson Kowar cleaned up the final three Orioles innings quite easily.
This is something that Legumina and Kowar have shown ability in. Both have struggled a few times in high-leverage and extra-inning situations, but when it comes to holding opposing leads where they are, these two pitchers do just fine.
Caleb Ferguson is more of a middle-leverage guy, but Dan Wilson has shown a willingness to put Ferguson in various different spots as sort of a generalist when it comes to leverage, though he obviously favors his usage against left-handers.
Dead Bats in Baltimore
The offense was plain bad for the entire Orioles series. Over three games, they slashed .208/.248/.270 and scored seven total runs (2.3 runs per game) against a team with an ERA of 4.85 before the series started.
By and large, the Mariners didn’t work counts, couldn’t make good contact, and more than anything looked to be going through the motions for large stretches of innings at a time. They looked a lot better after the rain delay on Thursday, scoring three runs in four innings, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the hole they had dug themselves in.
That being said, putting up any kind of fight in these losing battles is an improvement on earlier in the year, when the team would often roll over and die as soon as something went wrong. But despite this lineup being full of talent from top to bottom, the streakiness of nearly all their players means that stretches like this are still inevitable.
On Deck
Seattle is currently – disregarding momentum and the weight of history – in a pretty good spot in the playoff chase. Thursday’s loss dropped them to 67-55, one and a half games back of the division lead and in the first wild card spot. That wild card chase is still tight, however, as the Red Sox are a game back of the M’s while the Yankees trail by two and a half to round out the three wild card spots as they currently stand.
Trying to predict the future is impossible, but we can look at the wild card contenders to see how things might shake out. The four strong contenders are Seattle, New York, Boston, and Cleveland. Texas and Kansas City have an outside shot, but would need to go on an absolute roll starting yesterday to get in that spot.
A good benchmark to set for the third wild card is around 90-72 for the whole season. To make that benchmark, Cleveland would have to go 27-15, New York would need a 26-15 run, Boston’s would be 24-16, and the M’s would have to be 23-17. I think the two AL East teams could do those runs in their sleep, but Cleveland really does have a hill to climb. Still, there’s always at least one late-surging squad in baseball, and this year’s might be in Northeast Ohio.
23-17 seems like it should be doable for a ballclub currently 12 games over .500, but in fact, the Mariners are currently pacing 89 wins, i.e, going 22-18 in their last 40 games. And if they want to get to that 90-win benchmark, the M’s will have to stop checking out of the game for multiple innings at a time.
Seattle’s road trip continues on Friday as they take on a New York Mets team that has gone 2-12 in their last 14 games. But the M’s will have to be careful to not end up as a get-right series for a New York squad for the second month in a row.