Mariners waste dominant performance from Easton McGee in 1-0 loss to Blue Jays
TORONTO – The Seattle Mariners can say it all they want. You can see reasons why they believe it. There have been fleeting moments and two-game stretches where it seems plausible. Heck, it’s possible they might be right in the end.
But right now, in the first 27 games of this season, where they have lost more than they’ve won, and specifically this last stretch of games where they’ve struggled to score runs, they are not a great or even good offensive team.
If they were an average offensive team, they wouldn’t have lost four games in a row.
Instead, they’ve been something worse than that – unproductive, ineffective, feckless and uninspiring. Baseball analysts might call it suboptimal. Fans call it things not fit for print. But it is not working.
So when the combination of a struggling offensive team faces good pitching, the results are somewhat predictable.
To be fair, the Mariners didn’t face good pitching on Saturday afternoon at a sold-out Rogers Centre. Right-hander Kevin Gausman, one of the best pitchers in baseball, set the tone early, delivering one of the most dominant performances of his career.
After being overwhelmed by Gausman, who struck out a career-high 13 batters over seven innings, the Mariners did little in the three innings after he left the game, being shut out for the second time in three games in a 1-0 extra-innings defeat.
Facing former teammate Erik Swanson in the top of the 10th with J.P. Crawford starting as the automatic runner on second base, Kolten Wong struck out swinging and Tom Muprhy, who had two hits on the day, struck out swinging. M’s manager Scott Servais called on Ty France to pinch hit. But with two outs and first base open, Swanson pitched around France, despite his recent struggles, and walked him. The strategy worked as Swanson struck out AJ Pollock to end the inning.
After also being held scoreless for nine innings, the Blue Jays wasted little time ending the game against right-hander Trevor Gott. Vlad Guerrero Jr. led off with a single that moved automatic runner Bo Bichette to third. The Mariners intentionally walked Matt Chapman to load the bases. But Daulton Varsho ended any drama quickly, sending a line drive over the head of Teoscar Hernandez in right field.
Seattle struck out a season-high 19 times , which surpassed the previous high of 15 in Friday night’s loss. Over the past six games, they’ve struck out 80 times and scored 15 runs. They’ve scored just two runs in their last 35 innings .
“Gausman does lead the league in strikeouts,” Servais said. “You understand what the game plan is going in, and you can talk about it all you want. The reason he is that effective is that split-finger. It looks exactly like the fastball and he doesn’t land it often for strikes. You’re trying to get him to get the ball up and you’ve got to give him credit. He’s really good.”
The Mariners swung at 58 of Gausman’s pitches and whiffed on 28 of them, including 20 on the split-finger with only one in the strike zone. The Mariners had runners in scoring position in each of the first three innings, but Gausman got out of the jams with strikeouts.
“You gotta get on them early,” Servais said. “You know we had some chances there in the first and second inning and we weren’t able to cash in.”
They can tip their hat to the efforts opposing pitchers but might need to start toss a few helmets in disgust at their failures.
“It’s literally one facet of the game that we’re just not excelling at right now and that’s our offense,” Murphy said. “I mean every guy in the clubhouse feels it right now. We all know it. Putting pressure on ourselves is not going to help that’s for sure. We’re going to right that ship because I know in spring training that was most confident I’ve ever been in our offense in our last few years. Just looking at the bats we had the guys we had, things are going to turn around for us in that facet.”
Gausman’s dominance and the Mariners’ hitting struggles totally overshadowed and ruined a brilliant outing from Mariners starter Easton McGee, who was making his first big league start and flirted with a no-hitter.
Using a sinking two-seam fastball that bored in on hitters and just enough off-speed pitches to keep them off-balance, McGee retired the first 12 batters he faced. A leadoff walk to Matt Chapman in the fifth inning was the first runner to reach base. But McGee never led Chapman get into scoring position. He came back to get Daulton Varsho to fly out to left, struck out Brandon Belt and got Kevin Kiermaier to fly out to right field.
His bid at a no-hitter ended with two outs in the seventh inning. Chapman, who has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball, smoked a double off the wall in dead center for a double. It was less than a foot from going over the fence.
With the go-ahead run on second base, Servais went to his bullpen and brought in right-hander Matt Brash to face left-handed hitting Daulton Varsho.
“What an outing by Easton McGee to come up in his first start and do that against that kind of club is fantastic,” Servais said. “To get 6 2/3 innings of no-hit ball is more than we thought we were going to get out of him.”
He had a long chat with McGee on the mound when he took him out.
“I was just trying to soak in the moment,” McGee said. “I understood what was going on when I gave up that hit and I saw him coming out. I kind of just turned around and looked around and just said, ‘Wow.’ He came out and said, ‘Very nice job and that I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, which I will.”
Brash, a native of Canada, was noticeably amped up to be pitching in his home country in front of a large contingent of family and friends. His first pitch was a 99-mph fastball. After falling behind 3-1, he came back to strike out Varsho on a pair of sliders to end the inning.