Mariners Noon Number: 7

Seattle Mariners reliever Steve Cishek had seven blown saves last season before ending his season on the disabled list.

In Tuesday’s 9-6 loss to the Oakland Athletics, Cishek picked up his first blown save of 2017, allowing a two-run home run to left-handed hitting Matt Joyce, while a pair of lefties were available in the pen.

Later in the inning, lefty Marc Rzepczynski was allowed to face a right-handed batter, Mark Canha, and the result was another home run, this time a three-run shot.

Some of this is bad luck. Cishek’s splits against lefties both career (.233/.327/.330) and last season (.216/.316/.412) are perfectly reasonable. And Rzepczynski has been respectable against righties, but he really should be a specialist at this point in his career.

It’s tough to expect the guy to come right off the disabled list and into the closer’s role, especially when the team announced before the game that Edwin Diaz would be removed from role for now to work on his mechanics.

Manager Scott Servais has to pick-and-choose without a permanent closer named for the foreseeable future. If that means bringing in a lefty to help finish off a ninth inning, that’s what it’s going to have to be.

This team is so behind the eight-ball they simply can’t afford ninth-inning blown saves, yet both of their last two losses have been of that variety.