Rare Bullpen Blowup Sinks Mariners’ Winning Streak in 7-5 Loss to Royals
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The natural order of the world has perhaps reasserted itself, pending of course this weekend’s results. The Houston Astros are back on top in the AL West, having been undefeated after briefly losing their first-place spot on Sunday.
Oddly enough, the dagger for Seattle was a meltdown in the bullpen from Matt Brash, a reliever who entered Wednesday’s game having given up just four runs in his last 12 appearances and gave up four runs in less than a full inning in the eighth, a blowup start that raised Brash’s ERA from 1.85 to 2.64.
Perez Pounces on First Inning Mistake
Since returning from the IL in August, Bryce Miller’s performance on the mound has been a mixed bag. While he has increased his strikeouts and decreased his walks (with a 1.70 strikeout-to-walk ratio before his long stint increasing to 4.17 after his return), he has found another area of struggle: the home run ball. Despite giving up just 0.9 home runs per nine innings earlier in the season, since his re-entry into the Mariners rotation, that figure has increased to a whopping three home runs per nine innings.
That trend continued early on against the Royals on Wednesday evening. Miller got through the first two men in the bottom of the first but left a 2-1 splitter out over the plate to Vinnie Pasquantino, who kept the inning alive with a single through the hole in right. Maikel Garcia beat out an infield single, and what was on its way to being a quick inning rapidly soured into a two-out jam.
Up came Salvador Perez, who has historically fared pretty well against the M’s, with an .818 career OPS against Seattle coming into Wednesday’s matchup. But it’s the home runs that have given Perez his Mariner-killer reputation: the Royals backstop has hit 44 in 294 plate appearances against Seattle, a rate 6.68 plate appearances per home run (compared to his career average of 22.78 plate appearances per home run).
Miller’s 1-1 pitch to Perez was a fastball on the outer edge of the plate, but it was belt high—right in the wheelhouse for Perez. He completely clobbered the ball, torching it 435 feet to dead center field. Kansas City had a 3-0 lead, and Seattle trailed for the first time since Thursday’s 12-inning marathon.
Geno Breaks Slump
Despite the team’s recent winning ways, the M’s hadn’t seen much impact from Eugenio Suárez’ bat. After a couple big days in Atlanta, Suárez failed to get a hit in 32 straight at-bats over the span of eight straight games. Since being traded from the Diamondbacks in late July, the once and future Mariner has slashed just .165/.240/.373.
That dry spell came to a close in the second inning of Wednesday’s ballgame. After a leadoff nine-pitch walk from Jorge Polanco, Suárez got ahead in the count 2-1 against Royals starter Cole Ragans, who was in his first start since his own return from injury. Ragans, who had already thrown Suárez three straight fastballs, attacked him with another, but grooved it in the middle of the zone. Suárez launched it well over the wall in center and won two runs back for Seattle.
Suárez went 4-4 in Wednesday’s game with a homer, a double, and two singles. He knocked in two of Seattle’s five runs and scored three of them, a promising sign for a Mariner who has had more than his fair share of struggles since the Trade Deadline.
Miller Works Through Jams
Bryce Miller wasn’t exactly given a primrose path to his five innings of three-run ball. The Royals got a runner into scoring position in all but one of Miller’s innings, forcing him to buckle down and work through tough at-bats with little margin for error.
The two most persistent errors in Miller’s performance were unfortunate complements of each other: he missed well off the plate when he tried to work the edges (meaning that he didn’t get nearly as much swing and miss as the M’s would have liked) and, when he fell behind in counts, he all too often tried to sneak a strike that caught far too much of the plate. It had already given him a three-run burn in the first, but Miller kept scarily close to the fire all night.
The bottom of the third didn’t start well. Miller left a 2-1 fastball out over the plate to a leadoff Mike Yastrzemski, who seared it into right center for a double. Bobby Witt Jr. chopped a ball past Suárez at third to put runners on the corners with nobody out. He managed to get away with one to Pasquantino, who popped up a middle-middle fastball for the first out, but showcased some ironclad stuff on the corners to strike out Garcia. After skittishly walking Perez, Miller got a weak popout from Adam Frazier to keep Kansas City’s lead at one.
The fourth inning was a little less dangerous, as the threat came with two men on and one man out, but Miller once more worked through it, punching out Yastrzemski on three pitches and getting away with a hanging 3-1 sinker for an inning-ending flyout.
Only one man made it to second in the bottom of the fifth for Kansas City, but he got the closest to scoring of any Royal in the final three innings of Miller’s start. After getting on with a leadoff single, Pasquantino got to second on a Perez groundout, and Adam Frazier whacked a ball through the hole into left. Pasquantino barreled around third, knowing that Randy Arozarena didn’t have much of a history of throwing men out at the plate. Yet that is exactly what happened, as the Mariner left fielder’s throw took a perfect one-hop path into Mitch Garver’s glove for the third out.
Miller’s eight hits given up, four strikeouts, and two walks were all worse than his previous start in Seattle, but the fact that he gave up just one home run helped him get through the outing with limited damage.
Late Production Gives M’s Brief Lead
For much of the time between Suárez’ home run and Suárez’ double, the Mariners offense seemingly didn’t have much in the tank, getting just two hits from the third through the sixth (one of them being Suárez’ single). But in the top of the seventh, as time was running out for the M’s to flip the score and get in position to win their 11th straight game, they finally got the engine running.
It was Suárez’ double that kicked things off in the top of the seventh. Josh Naylor grounded out to the right side to move him to third base, and Mitch Garver came through with a game-tying sacrifice fly. That display of small ball was all the production for that inning, but J.P. Crawford led off the top of the eighth with a fly ball curled into the seats down the right field line for a go-ahead big fly.
Even in the top of the eighth, not all was going well for Seattle. The M’s got two singles from Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez and got Suárez another opportunity with two outs, but Royals pitcher Lucas Erceg picked off Rodríguez to end the top half and force Matt Brash to work with a one-run cushion in the bottom of the inning.
Brash Blown Save Ends Winning Streak
Mariners setup man Matt Brash is usually a lockdown high-leverage reliever, coming into Wednesday’s game with a series of mostly clean holds (and a save) in his previous outings over the duration of Seattle’s winning streak.
That was not the case on Wednesday. His first opponent was Perez, who he danced around but still looked decent against—other than a changeup that missed well off to the armside—despite the walk. Another 3-2 count followed against Frazier, and Brash tried to throw a heater on the upper outside corner. The ball ran downwards, and Frazier put a quick swing on the ball to lift a fly ball down the left field line.
A fly ball with a 96.1 mile per hour exit velocity and a 36-degree launch angle, according to StatCast, has a 0.060 expected batting average. Frazier’s fly ball went 338 feet, a distance that would have been held inside the ballpark had it gone anywhere but down the line.
Yet down the line it did go. Arozarena drifted over, but all he could do was watch it land a foot past the wall and a foot inside the foul pole. The Royals led 5-4.
Things fell apart after that. Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen jumped on some grooved secondaries to combine for another run, and Witt hit what should have been a single into center to knock in Jensen—but he ended up at third due to a collection of fielding miscues. Carlos Vargas came in from the bullpen and put out the fire, but the damage was done, and the Royals had a 7-4 advantage.
Seattle got runners at first and third with nobody out in the top of the ninth, but a Dominic Canzone double play all but killed the rally in a 7-5 loss for the M’s.
On Deck
When it comes to the playoff chase, there’s bad news, good news, and some other bad news. The main bad news, obviously, is that Houston is back in first by a half game margin, with an 84-69 record compared to Seattle’s 83-69.
The good news for the Mariners is that the Rangers also lost, reducing Seattle’s magic number to five. Put another way, if all the Mariners do is win two of their next 10 games, the Rangers would have to go 7-2 in order to sneak into the third wild card spot.
But the secondary bad news is that the Cleveland Guardians are still in the heat of the race with an 80-71 record, two and a half games back of Seattle. The M’s own the tiebreaker against Cleveland, so their magic number is eight over the boys from Lake Erie.
Seattle has one more game against Kansas City before facing the Astros in the biggest weekend series of 2025.
