Mariners Fall Asleep After Top of First, Surrender Comeback Loss to Guardians
CLEVELAND, Ohio — A series of unfortunate events transpired aside the Cuyahoga on Friday, and they showcased exactly what is the Achilles’ heel of the 2025 Seattle Mariners.
It’s not the hitting, even though Seattleites will reflexively see that as the main issue as a result of years of ineptitude. It’s not the starting pitching, despite all their inconsistencies. It’s not the bullpen, despite the fact they were the ones who gave up three runs in the space of four outs.
It’s the defense, which suffers from two key weaknesses. The first is flaws of positioning, but that is a little more arguable in baseball circles, as there are situational advantages and disadvantages to each position a fielder can be in, especially a third baseman (though Eugenio Suárez’ positioning cost the M’s something close to two runs in their opening game against the Cleveland Guardians).
The main weakness is that when the chips are down and the fielders need to make a quick throw and tag at the plate (or anywhere else), they just can’t get it done. And it’s a whole-field issue. The outfielders’ throws are often errant or slow, the catchers have trouble both in getting the ball and applying the tag, and ancillary fielders (especially pitchers) have an especially bad habit of not backing up the throws.
It also certainly doesn’t help that the offense scored exactly zero runs for the final eight innings of Friday’s game, especially in a stadium where Seattle has a track record of giving up bad comebacks, leading to a 5-4 loss.
Mariners Tack On Early Runs
Seattle did a couple things right, despite the loss, and one of them was hopping on the opposing pitcher early. Facing southpaw starter Logan Allen, Randy Arozarena sent the fourth pitch of the game deep into the right center field gap for a leadoff double. A Cal Raleigh walk was followed by singles from both Julio Rodríguez and Suárez and the Mariners led 2-0.
A double play is the archetypal rally-killer, and so after Josh Naylor grounded into one, you would be forgiven for thinking that was all she wrote on the big first inning. But Jorge Polanco doubled the lead with a two-run blast that snuck inside the left field foul pole, just high enough to clear the big Cleveland left field wall.
Allen settled in after that, working efficiently enough to keep his pitch count relatively low and get through six innings in total, not giving up any more runs. But as often happens, the first inning was a killer for one of the starting pitchers, and so the Mariners were in a very good spot to win.
Strong Start from Furious George
George Kirby faced some issues during his start, but at the end of the day, he gave Seattle a solid seven-inning outing and handed the bullpen a good starting hand. He lacked control on his knuckle curve in the early innings, but regained his grip on the out pitch later in the game—and all the while, his slider was getting some good swings and misses from the home bats while his fastballs were doing the efficiency work.
Steven Kwan, as he is known to do, slapped a liner the other way for a leadoff single, and José Ramírez ripped a double down the right field line to impose a pretty good chance on a Seattle starter who has seen his struggles recently. But despite his limited effective repertoire early, Kirby mixed sliders and fastballs well enough to notch three punchouts and get through the inning without any damage.
Luckily for Kirby, he got some soft contact in the second to help him get through the inning on just six pitches and balance out the 20-pitch first. So too did Kirby get an easy third, while the fourth was kept scoreless courtesy of some good defense by Dominic Canzone. By the end of the fifth, Kirby had thrown just 59 pitches.
Cleveland finally got on the board in the sixth inning, as Kyle Manzardo got a 2-1 grooved fastball and drilled it over the wall for a one-out homer. Kirby recovered quickly, but a nine-pitch at-bat from Angel Martínez drove his pitch count up to 82.
The seventh did contain a pitch decision that came back to bite Kirby and the Mariners. With a rare 3-1 count on Nolan Jones, Kirby gave in, throwing a fastball right down the middle that ended up over the center field wall for a home run. Something in the vein of a backdoor slider or a heater on the corner would have been fine, but trying to sneak an easy strike like that is generally a pretty bad idea.
Nevertheless, Kirby got through the inning, finishing his night with seven innings pitched and just two runs given up, striking out six while walking none.
Bo Naylor Shuts Down M’s Baserunners
Although the Seattle Mariners are usually a good base-stealing team, that was not the case on Friday, as Cleveland Guardians catcher Bo Naylor gunned down two Mariners in the earlier innings of the game and nipped potential Seattle scoring opportunities in the bud. Both times, Naylor had an incredibly quick pop time and fired a laser down to second base—and he needed both of those things to neutralize the good jumps that Randy Arozarena and Jorge Polanco were both able to get.
The M’s have oscillated in their aggressiveness on the basepaths, and while it’s generally good to swipe the extra bases, Seattle did suffer from selection on Friday. Both attempts came on pitches easily catchable for Bo Naylor, which, along with his aforementioned quickness on the ball, was a key difference-maker in each of the outs. And these throws ended up being of prime importance, as they pretty directly prevented any extra Mariner rallies to really put the game away.
Defense Dom
Mariners right fielder Dominic Canzone isn’t usually known for his defensive prowess. Baseball Reference has him at negative defensive WAR, and Fangraphs has a similarly low rating of his ability with the glove.
But Canzone certainly flashed the leather on Friday, taking two hits away from the Guardians during George Kirby’s start—a running catch inward in the third and an incredible running catch outward in the right center field gap during the fourth. The latter grab was especially impressive and especially important, as Kyle Manzardo would have surely scored from first on a ball that dropped that far out from the infield.
Even towards the end of the game, as the rest of the Mariner defense unraveled under pressure, Canzone was out there making good plays. But we’ll get to that in due course.
Cleveland Inches Closer in Eighth
Nolan Jones had a pretty solid day for the Guardians on both sides of the ball. His longball in the seventh brought Cleveland within two runs, and in the next half inning, he likely prevented the M’s from getting any insurance, firing a howitzer to third base to shoot down a would-be leadoff triple from Randy Arozarena. Although Cal Raleigh walked for the third time that day, the next two men up couldn’t get anything going, so it was still 4-2 going into the bottom of the eighth.
Matt Brash rather quickly got himself into some control trouble, walking two straight with one out to put the go-ahead run at the dish. Bo Naylor grounded into a force at second and got Brash a little closer to a scot-free inning. With two strikes, Angel Martínez chopped a ball towards straightaway third, but Suárez had been running to the bag to cover the runner, and so a would-be third out became a run-scoring infield hit.
Although the M’s had three separate singles in the top of the ninth, an intervening double play prevented anything from going home, and so Seattle was holding on to the barest of leads going into the bottom of the ninth.
Throwing and Positioning Continue to Haunt M’s
It seemed the Mariners bats mostly died after their strong top of the first, seemingly confident that four runs would be enough. And it very nearly was—had Kirby been willing to risk a walk in the bottom of the seventh, or had Suárez been less concerned with the runner with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, the M’s would have had more cushion.
A lack of any meaningful pitch mix for the leadoff man in the bottom of the ninth had a big cost for the Mariners. With a 1-2 count, Andres Muñoz threw his third slider at the bottom of the zone and over the middle of the plate. Jones was sitting on that exact pitch, and so he lined it into the gap for a leadoff double. Canzone made a valiant effort to cut it off and try to get the out at second, but with no foot to plant the throw on, it came in too slowly, though the play was still close.
Here was where the Mariners defense fell apart. With two strikes, Muñoz once again found a ton of the plate, and Brayan Rocchio—who had been showing bunt the entire at-bat until falling to two strikes—simply blooped it towards the edge of the infield. Had Suárez adjusted to the two-strike count and fallen back towards the edge of the outfield, or even to a straight-up position, it would have been an easy catch. But since he was playing well out on the infield grass as if Rocchio was still going to bunt, the batted ball fell in for a hit towards left field.
And another thing came back to haunt Seattle: the throwing. It’s pretty clear and obvious that the Mariners have trouble throwing people out on the bases or at the plate. And what’s more, other teams pretty clearly know this. Basically any edge-case decision for the third base coach is a green light when the M’s are taking the field, and a leaky battery of Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh showcased why.
The Mariners left fielder picked up the ball while Jones was rounding third and darted the ball towards the plate. It was maybe two feet towards the third base side of Raleigh’s glove as Jones rushed home, but the ball was clearly on its way to beating the runner. Had Raleigh kept a good beat on the ball and swiveled more forcefully into it, knowing his momentum would take the tag right into the runner, it would have been a key first out.
Yet that is once again what most certainly didn’t happen, as Raleigh let the ball zoom right by him to the backstop. To add insult to injury, no one was backing him up, so Rocchio raced into third base—and scored on Steven Kwan’s following sacrifice fly.
The reason the defense is the true Achilles’ heel of the M’s is because everything else they suffer from is a problem of inconsistency. Sometimes a guy just has a bad day, whether that’s a pitcher or a hitter. But with their defensive issues, these are consistently problems for the team, something that other clubs can rely on in order to squeeze a win in tight situations like Cleveland did on Friday.
On Deck
The Mariners fell to 72-63 after a game that was certainly an ugly way to begin a nine-game road trip. The division is quite rapidly falling away, as are the top two wild cards, but the real danger to the Mariners comes from the AL Central. Cleveland improved to four games behind Seattle with Friday’s game. That’s a lot in some respects, but it’s also just two losses away from being a two-game lead.
More important are the Kansas City Royals, who are even closer than the Guardians to that third wild card spot. If the M’s have a road trip like their previous one, they could very well end up on the outside looking in by the second week of September.
