Mariners Waste Lucky Breaks that Angels Take, Drop Series with 8-7 Loss in Extras
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Seattle Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez (44) returns to the dugout following the fourth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images [/caption]
There’s always a strange air around games between the Angels and Mariners. Any divisional rivalry series will have an edge to it, but for the Halos and M’s, it just feels a bit different.
It probably has something to do with this: the modern Perry Minasian Angels are a mirror of the Jack Zduriencik-era Mariners: both teams stuck in the doldrums of mediocrity, wasting the career of two generational players (one Japanese superstar each), but each doing it in the opposite way.
Where the 2010s M’s caromed between 95-loss disasters and missing the playoffs by a game or two, the 2020s Angels hover around 70-75 wins year-in and year-out. The Zduriencik Mariners failed to shore up generational pitcher Felix Hernández, while the Minasian Angels have left future Hall of Fame center fielder Mike Trout out to dry. Ichiro was the first Japanese position player to light up the MLB (doing so with an old-school Wee Willie Keeler-style approach), but was nearing the last few years of his career by the time Zduriencik sent him to the Yankees. Shohei Ohtani, a much more homer-focused modern great (who, by the way, can also pitch) was a few years into his pro career before going to Anaheim.
And both teams entered Easter Sunday with a 4-5 record on the young season. The Halos had essentially zero preseason hope of making the playoffs while the Mariners have World Series aspirations.
Tired of comparisons? Both teams got a good heap of luck sent their way on offense: the Halos got the benefit of Seattle’s bad left infield glovework while the M’s saw some wild pitchers throughout to gift the visitors some baserunners.
But just like in the autumns of the aughts, it was the Angels who took advantage of the luck they were given, scoring at least one run every time a runner made it to second. The M’s, meanwhile, made it to the 11th inning on the back of Cole Young’s high-end talent and the clutch abilities of an otherwise struggling Julio Rodríguez, but Cal Raleigh’s unexpected inability to make contact on middle-middle meat and Randy Arozarena’s very much well-known subpar arm put the nail in the Mariners’ Sunday coffin.
The offense with RISP made a slight improvement, but the team still heavily relied on a wild debutant to get things going.
A scratched starter put Halos rookie George Klassen on the mound, and although he had the classic rookie combo of all stuff and no control, the Mariners did not fully exploit his youth and inexperience.
Luke Raley, at least, made the most of his impromptu leadoff role with a double on Klassen’s first offering. Klassen proceeded to hang a changeup on a ticker-tape Broadway parade to Raleigh, but the struggling catcher dribbled it down the first base line for a productive out.
All too often, however, the order of events has looked like this for the 2026 Mariners. First the bottom of the order and/or the leadoff man set the table with no outs, but Raleigh and Rodríguez strike out or pop out for the first two punches and Josh Naylor hits the next pitch to someone’s glove. While Raleigh bent the mold on the first one, a Rodríguez punchout and Naylor flyout stuck precisely to script.
Luckily for the M’s, Klassen leaned quite a bit more into a Gavin Williams impression in the second, walking Randy Arozarena, Cole Young (who showed off some plate knowledge with an ABS challenge to complete his free pass), and Mitch Garver to load the bases with one away. Despite his scuffles, Leo Rivas knocked a two-run single into left center to give Seattle their first of three leads. The M’s refilled the bases with two away thanks to a solid walk from Raleigh, but to no avail as Rodríguez lined out to left.
Seattle put two on in the third with some help from a Naylor bunt single and another walk, but once again the M’s made nothing of it. It’s worth noting the pitching change in that frame, as Angels manager Kurt Suzuki pulled Klassen for hard-throwing righty Ryan Zeferjahn, and the M’s untapped water dried up in the fourth.
Castillo brought less of his A-game on Sunday, and a prepped Angels lineup made enough mayhem to throw him out in the fourth.
While Luis Castillo can still shove, as he showed against the Yankees his previous outing, there are limitations that come with his age. His once-great sinker abruptly started getting pummeled last August, so after a few blow-up starts, the M’s simply had him lay off the pitch and get back in the zone with four-seamers.
Castillo did eventually re-incorporate the sinker every now and then as the postseason rolled around, but it has still found quite a bit of barrel in the time since. He effectively didn’t throw it against the Yankees, but from the early moments of Sunday’s game, he tossed in some sinkers to pretty bad results.
The first two pitches to Zach Neto were both sinkers right down the middle, the second of which got ripped to left for a leadoff double. Just like the top half, the opening two-bagger was followed by a productive out to bring the man to third, but unlike the Mariners’ half, the Halos punched one through. Although Castillo located a two-out, 1-2 four-seamer pretty well at the top of the zone, Jorge Soler perfectly split the left half of the infield to knock in the man from third.
Castillo’s issues weren’t just limited to the sinker, however. Seemingly thrown off his game. He overcooked his fastball multiple times as the innings wore on, though the Halos’ game-tying run in the third came after Mike Trout took advantage of a plated heater and cracked a double.
These well-done steaks gummed up the works early in the fourth. Castillo hit the left-handed Josh Lowe with a fastball that stuck in his grip a split second too long and missed the plate four of five times to walk Logan O’Hoppe. Former Mariner Adam Frazier bunted the runners over a station and Seattle brought the infield in with Zach Neto at the dish.
Bad Mariners defense gave the Halos a consistent stream of extra runs.
Castillo would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for some meddling errors. Neto drilled a grounder right Rivas’ way, but instead of getting in front of the ball, he tried to backhand the hotshot for a chance at a quicker transition home. Had he fielded it cleanly, he would have had the ability to nail Lowe at home, but the ball kicked out of the opening in his leather and everyone was safe. Castillo finished his day by punching Mike Trout out on four pitches, but with the left-handed Nolan Schanuel at the plate, things went haywire once more.
For years, Mariners pitchers have thrown sinkers in tough spots to their opponents hoping that they would hit the ball right to J.P. Crawford at shortstop. But it seems he has taken quite a step back from his Gold Glove 2020 season or his five-win 2023, because he muffed a play he would have completed in his sleep during those campaigns.
Schanuel hit a slow roller right Crawford’s way. It wasn’t a supremely easy play, but it was still one that should be routine for a big league shortstop. Crawford rushed the throw, however, and overshot Naylor enough to where his recipient had to leap off the bag to take the throw down. It was scored a single, but make no mistake: it would have been an inning-ending out if the throw was clean.
Even an inning and three Mariners runs later (more on that shortly), defensive miscues kept building up. Jose A. Ferrer buried a changeup against Jeimer Candelario that ended up in left center for a double - that would have been caught by a better left fielder, but it was more in the category of plays the M’s are happy to trade in exchange for Arozarena’s bat than a piece of actively bad glovework - and Jo Adell brought him in with a game-tying single. A bunt and an infield carom-ball brought Adell to third with two outs.
Seattle’s final defensive letdown in the regulation nine innings was one of positioning an infielder too close to the plate, a sad commonality among the Mariners and much of the league at large. But with two outs, the third baseman Rivas positioning himself in on the grass was especially egregious. Having the third baseman drawn in somewhat is necessary with a lefty on the mound in this spot, so as not to let a giant lead and a straight steal of home, but Rivas was way too far in. Had he been properly positioned, Frazier’s grounder would have been a routine final out, but the Halos took a 6-5 lead on an RBI single.
Cole Young continued carrying the entire team on his back and Julio Rodríguez had another ninth inning clutch moment, but the rest of the team continued its prolonged slumber.
If there’s one Mariner who hasn’t been to blame for the team’s opening 10-game dud, it’s Cole Young. Offseason improvements for the sophomore have made a big early impact - best exemplified by his game-changing 10th inning triple on Friday - and he continued impressing on Sunday with the bat and the glove.
He started it off with the glove, taking a Jeimer Candelario hit off the board with a diving grab in the bottom of the third. But the real impact came off the lumber.
Randy Arozarena got on board with his 100th career hit by pitch (tied with Pete Alonso for 107th most all-time) and J.P. Crawford finished setting the fifth inning table with a walk.
Fitting for a Mariners team that lives and dies by the home run, Young brought the M’s back in the game with a blast to right, torching Brent Suter’s hanging slider well out of the reach of three-time Saturday homer-burglar Jo Adell.
But after Seattle quickly lost the lead as soon as they had it in the bottom half, Rivas getting picked off first base was the closest the M’s got to scoring until the ninth inning. As so much of the scoring on either side Sunday had been predicated on, the opportunity came from a piece of blind two-out luck: Raleigh shanked a hanging changeup, but it floated into the outfield in front of a confused Lowe for a dime-store double. When Rodríguez fell into an 0-2 hole, however, it seemed like the good break might go to waste.
Rodríguez, of course, got his second game-tying two-strike two-out ninth inning RBI single of the season, both of which occurred in games the M’s went on to lose. While Rodríguez got thrown out trying to steal second, Andrés Muñoz dealt a clean bottom half (at least when it came to outs) and the game went to extras.
Both sides notched a run in the 10th, but Seattle’s real missed opportunity was in the 11th. Two quick outs and a Rivas walk began the inning, but as Raley whiffed on the first two pitches, it again seemed as though the luck had run dry. After mashing that leadoff double, Raley had been having the kind of limitation-reminder game that tells us what he’s not, having missed 11 of 15 swings.
No matter, however: Halos reliever Shaun Anderson plunked Raley on the elbow, loading the bags for Raleigh.
Ordinarily, this would be a whole lot of good for the M’s. But early-2026 Cal Raleigh has been anything but ordinary, especially when it comes to fastballs over the heart of the plate. Typically, those are the easiest pitches for a big leaguer to hit, and even though Raleigh traded some contact last year for his monstrous power, he still only missed 18.5% of swings against such pitches according to StatCast. Granted, that was quite a bit above the league average 13.6% whiff rate on such meatballs, but his power stroke more than made up for it. Even some hitters with around a 30% whiff rate on fastballs over the heart of the plate last year, like Giancarlo Stanton, were able to provide value with their power stroke, even in especially whiff-happy months.
But players who miss half the time and don’t get good contact on what they do hit? Well, they look a lot like what Cal Raleigh has looked over the first 10 games. Raleigh entered the game with a 52.9% whiff rate on fastballs over the heart of the plate, the worst of anyone in baseball who has seen 100 or more pitches.
He actually had improved that mark to 50% by the time Anderson threw a 2-2 fastball in the zone. This one wasn’t right down Broadway, but it was at least foul-able and caught a lot of plate. Raleigh completely whiffed.
The luck had actually run out this time, and there was little Gabe Speier could do. Schanuel sent a medium depth fly ball to left with the ghost runner on third, and Arozarena’s throw was too far up the third base line to mean an iota of difference. The Halos won 8-7.
The frenzy of Mariners injury scares continued with Muñoz tweaking his back, and it spread to the Halos, who had to take out Trout after a HBP.
The past few days have seen a cavalcade of injury scares in the Mariners organization. Brendan Donovan tweaked his groin stepping on first base, top prospect Colt Emerson became day-to-day after fouling a ball off his foot, and Double-A prospect Lazaro Montes ran into a bizarrely shaped minor league wall (but was fine to stay in the game). Their ranks have perhaps been joined by Andrés Muñoz, who had to have a visit from the trainer after something shifted in his back on during a pitch.
Muñoz was visibly uncomfortable as he completed the inning, though he did reach 99 miles an hour on the final fastball. It didn’t end up affecting the game much - the M’s were going to bring Matt Brash in to pitch the 10th regardless - but there will be unease about his status, given the risk of trying to play through an injury early in the year and throwing off his season trajectory.
An injury scare came on the other side of the ball in the top of the eighth, as the often-injured Mike Trout got hit on the hands by a Casey Legumina fastball that got away from the Mariners reliever. Trout left the game for Oswald Peraza.
On Deck
It may be early, but the Mariners’ next seven games are as close to a must-win stretch as can be possible in the second week of April. Now, that means that treading water and going 3-4 wouldn’t be all that concerning, but a 2-5 showing or worse could put the Mariners back in the old doghouse.
First, the road trip concludes with a three-game set in Arlington, Texas. While the Rangers are underdogs in the division, their heavy-hurling pitching staff will be on full display when the M’s are in town, with Jacob DeGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, and MacKenzie Gore set to take the hill for the hosts. Seattle, of course, is set to field Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Bryan Woo, so it’s not like Texas has the pitching edge completely in their corner.
The four-game home set against the Houston Astros will be more important. Although PECOTA still gives the Mariners a 65.8% chance to win the division, Houston’s chances have gone up a few percentage points since the season’s start, and it took a lot of injuries to keep the Astros even within reach of a takedown last year. This team may still be more than the sum of its parts, and the FanGraphs divisional projections have merged downwards into the preseason prediction market odds of the M’s at around 50% and the Astros and Rangers both a little over 20%.
Seattle must avoid the sweep in their early series against their once-defeated foe. Everything else is survivable.
