‘We didn’t come through’: Hitting woes plague Mariners again in series loss to Cubs
In Sunday’s series finale and rubber match with the Chicago Cubs at T-Mobile Park, a game Seattle desperately needed – a Mariners offense plagued by early inconsistency and whiffs fell flat again.
When Cubs first baseman Michael Busch demolished a two-run homer to right field in the fourth inning, his fourth consecutive game with a home run, Chicago’s early, three-run lead felt insurmountable. And on Sunday, it was.
Uncharacteristically shaky through three starts, Luis Castillo turned in perhaps his strongest outing of the season, but the Cubs hung on to Sunday’s finale on a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Seattle, 3-2.
In front of more than 30,000 fans – many of them traveling Chicago fans decked in royal blue – the Cubs grabbed a first-inning lead and Seattle never caught up.
“That’s a frustrating loss,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “But you have to execute.
“We didn’t come through.”
Seattle was primed for a seventh-inning breakthrough when Dylan Moore was hit by a pitch and Mitch Garver walked with no outs, but Chicago called upon right-handed reliever Mark Leiter Jr., who induced Cal Raleigh’s fly out and Luke Raley’s inning-ending double play with the tying run 90 feet from home.
Another chance to tie Sunday’s game arrived for the Mariners an inning later, when Cubs reliever Hector Neris walked Josh Rojas, J.P. Crawford, and Jorge Polanco in the eighth. But the rally was erased by Ty France’s second double play of the day (the team’s third) while the Mariners remained stuck in neutral.
It ended mercifully in the ninth, when Cubs closer Adbert Alzolay picked off pinch-runner Julio Rodriguez at first base, again the tying run. Servais initially rested J-Rod for a mental breather Sunday, but quickly discarded those plans after Raleigh walked with two outs in the final frame.
“They gave us an opportunity to take the game and the series,” Servais said. “We just didn’t go grab it.”
Castillo kept Seattle within striking distance: across six quality innings, La Piedra surrendered three runs (two earned) with seven hits and nine strikeouts. He generated 23 swings-and-misses by Cubs hitters, tied for the most by any starting pitcher in MLB this season.
“Our (starters) are locked in,” Servais said. “They’re attacking the zone, they’re putting guys away.”
Yet again four games below .500 (6-10), Seattle hitters still search for answers. Entering Sunday, Seattle’s .183 batting average among its 1-2-3 batters ranked at the bottom of the American League.
That number worsened until Mitch Haniger dribbled a fourth-inning swinging bunt down the third base line Sunday, good for Seattle’s first base hit after Cubs starter Javier Assad retired the first eight Mariners in order.
“You can’t rely on the home run,” Servais said. “When you do have traffic out there, having quality at-bats, figuring out a way to move runners across and moving them up… it’s not happening right now.”
LF Dominic Canzone made the game’s toughest defensive play, but it may have cost the Mariners another injury. Running to his left in the second inning, Canzone robbed Mike Tauchman of an extra-base hit on the warning track before immediately crashing into the wall and collapsing to the ground, grabbing his left (glove) shoulder.
Servais jogged out of the dugout with head athletic trainer Kyle Torgerson and attended to Canzone, still on the ground. It was later revealed that Canzone had suffered a left AC joint sprain. The stadium’s jumbotron garnered a collective cringe as a slow-motion replay played the left fielder’s head-first collision into the wall, removing Canzone’s sunglasses – but not the ball from his glove.
Castillo would work out of a second-inning jam with two Chicago runners aboard, much to Canzone’s credit.
“I know he’s going to be out for a little while,” Servais said of Canzone, though still unclear on a timeline. “I feel bad for Dom… great play.”
Polanco lifted a two-run homer to right field in the sixth inning that erased the shutout, his first career home run at T-Mobile Park.
GILBERT’S BRILLIANCE PREVENTS TORONTO SWEEP
The rotation widely considered baseball’s best suffered surprising turbulence in the season’s opening weeks — but Logan Gilbert’s dependability and consistency as Seattle’s longest-tenured starting pitcher ended the club’s earlier downswing.
On a Wednesday afternoon in Toronto where the Mariners offense struggled to produce runs and required near-perfection from Gilbert, he was every bit exceptional. The 26-year-old righty picked apart Blue Jays hitters and generated nine swings-and-misses with a still-blossoming slider, mixing his staple four-seamer across 7 ⅓ brilliant innings.
“It’s exactly what we needed,” Servais said. “Executing pitches and not backing off. Staying in (counts) and controlling counts. All of the things that we preach about on the pitching side, he did it today.”
Gilbert matched a season-high eight strikeouts and walked one in Seattle’s extra-inning, 6-1 victory, avoiding a three-game road sweep at Rogers Centre after the Mariners faltered both Monday and Tuesday. Gilbert worked ahead in counts more often than not, touched 97 mph with his four-seamer, and purposefully forced breaking pitches down and away.
“I was trying to just be really stubborn about where I wanted to go with (my slider), and keep it there the whole game. Decent amount of the time, I felt like I got it down.”
Through three starts, Gilbert sports a 2.66 ERA with three walks and 23 strikeouts, still without a decision (0-0).
And though he struggled to harness his splitter, the slider became Wednesday’s go-to.
“That’s kind of the luxury of having all the different pitches that he has,” catcher Cal Raleigh said. “He can always lean on one if he needs to, if one’s not working. He’s come a long way. He’s worked really hard on (the slider) as far as messing with shapes, locations. He found something that he likes a lot, kind of right in his happy zone.”
Through nine innings, Seattle gave Gilbert only one run of support. There was no room for error when he threw his lone mistake of the afternoon — a misplaced, seventh-inning slider to All-Star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who promptly demolished the middle-middle offering 459 feet into the upper deck in left field. No longer was Gilbert in control of a decision, and Wednesday’s series finale was suddenly tied.
But like Raleigh has so many times before, Seattle’s catcher sent Blue Jays fans home in agony, and without a sweep. The leadoff hitter in the 10th, Raleigh swatted an opposite-field, two-run homer that sparked a five-run frame in extras.
Ironically, through 13 games, the Mariners’ eight runs in 10th innings (two games) were the club’s most runs scored in any inning this season.
Raleigh’s becoming a full-fledged Blue Jay killer. It was his second homer of the series and seventh career home run at Rogers Centre.
Raleigh has nine home runs and a 1.091 OPS (53 AB) in 15 career regular-season games against Toronto.
“It seems normal when he’s here, honestly,” Gilbert said of his battery mate. “And that sounds bad to say, but for some reason, (Cal) loves hitting in Toronto.”
Roughly a year ago, a frustrated Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters Raleigh is “not very tough to pitch to when you execute your pitches. He’s hitting .200.”
And in most instances since, Raleigh provides Toronto’s manager a reminder.
“I know a lot of guys that have beef with (Schneider) in the league,” Raleigh said. “His comments are surprising. I don’t really have much to say. If you don’t have anything nice, don’t say it at all, I guess.”
BRASH CLOSE TO REHAB ASSIGNMENT
Matt Brash (right elbow inflammation) threw a live bullpen session earlier this week and was scheduled to throw another on Sunday, Mariners general manager Justin Hollander told reporters on Saturday. Barring a setback, the club will assign the 25-year-old reliever with nasty secondary stuff to Triple-A Tacoma for a rehab assignment when the Mariners depart for Colorado next weekend.
“He felt good after the first (session),” Hollander said. “He really got after it.
“From what I understand, (his) stuff was really good. It was a full-go, I’m-gonna-let-it-eat live BP. He needs to do another one… (to) make sure he bounces back from it. We’ll take it outing by outing.”
– RHP Bryan Woo threw an “up-down” bullpen on Saturday, with intermittent breaks to simulate game action. A live bullpen session comes next, then a rehab assignment on a similar timeline to that of Brash.
“Roughly a 20-pitch up-down, and then another 20-pitch second inning for a live session, and then a three-inning rehab start if that goes well,” Hollander said.
– Setup man Gregory Santos (right lat strain), acquired from the Chicago White Sox in February, is “doing well” and currently throwing up to 75 feet, per Hollander.
“The next step would be 105 (feet). Hopefully, that’s next week,” Hollander said. “We have to be somewhat conservative, somewhat safe so that we don’t push it to the point where we have another setback.”
SHORT HOPS
– Luis Castillo holds the franchise record for most strikeouts through 50 career starts with the club (323). That record will grow; Sunday marked Castillo’s 48th career Mariners start.
– From the always-informative Mariners game notes: OF Mitch Haniger homered on April 14 in three consecutive games in which he played on the date (2022, 2019, 2018). Seattle’s contest at Baltimore on April 14, 2021, was rained out, but Haniger homered in the makeup game at Camden Yards the following afternoon.
ON DECK
Seattle continues a six-game homestand at T-Mobile Park, host to Cincinnati for a three-game set beginning Monday night.
George Kirby takes the mound for Jackie Robinson Day – Monday’s series opener – when players league wide wear number 42 in honor of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947. First pitch is scheduled for a fitting 6:42 p.m.
This story was originally published April 14, 2024 at 5:36 PM with the headline "‘We didn’t come through’: Hitting woes plague Mariners again in series loss to Cubs."
