Mariners can’t get key hit in ninth as Diamondbacks snap their three-game win streak
PHOENIX — The elusive goal of getting to four games over .500, something they’ve failed to do in this back-and-forth season, representing a start to sustained success and better days ahead, ended with an ugly, flailing swing from Julio Rodriguez on a pitch nowhere near the strike zone.
With their most talented player at the plate, and the Arizona Diamondbacks using their third reliever of the top of the ninth, it seemed like a situation for Rodriguez to deliver in a situation where he’s failed more than he or anyone would prefer this season.
With one out in the ninth, rookie Cade Marlowe silenced the crowd of 44,492, many of them wearing Star Wars costumes, tripling to the left-center gap off lefty Andrew Chafin. With two outs, J.P. Crawford, the Mariners’ best player this season, battled his way for an eight-pitch walk off Chafin, to give Rodriguez a chance to be the hero against right-hander Scott McGough.
After watching a first-pitch strike, Rodriguez proceeded to foul off four straight pitches while refusing to chase two out of the zone. But on the eighth pitch of their battle, Rodriguez finally succumbed to a split-finger fastball that dropped well out of the zone and off the plate for the final out in a 4-3 loss to the Diamondbacks.
It was a swing and result familiar to Mariners fans this season.
“Our guys really battled right down to the last pitch tonight, trying to find a way to tie that game back up,” M’s manager Scott Servais said. “You’ve got to figure out a way to win these games. We are right there and we’re doing a lot of good things offensively.
“But we just needed the big hit late and we weren’t able to do it.”
Big hit? Any sort of hit with runners in scoring position would have sufficed. Seattle was 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position in the game and stranded eight runners on base.
“We had chances, good chances to put up more than just three run,” Servais said. “And we didn’t get it done tonight.”
The defeat snapped the Mariners’ three-game winning streak.
Arizona took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth when its most talented player, Corbin Carroll, changed the game without getting a hit. The Seattle native worked a leadoff walk from Andres Munoz, coaxed the reliever into a balk on a base he would’ve stolen anyway, stole third immediately and scored on Dominic Canzone’s bouncing ball up the middle past a drawn-in infield.
The Mariners provided an early 3-0 lead for rookie starter Bryan Woo. Facing rookie right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, they proved that sacrifice flies are useful. They picked up a run in the second when Cal Raleigh led off with a single and later came around to score on Tom Murphy’s flyball to deep center.
The Mariners made it 2-0 in similar fashion in the third. Kolten Wong led off the inning with a single, moved to second on Crawford’s single, advanced to third on a fielder’s choice from Rodriguez and scored on Eugenio Suarez’s lineout to left field.
They made it 3-0 in the fourth when Murphy jumped on a first-pitch fastball from Pfaadit, sending it into the left-field seats for his eight homer of the season and his seventh since June 1.
Facing a lineup with two switch hitters and five left-handed hitters, Woo fought his way through five innings, giving up three runs on seven hits with two walks and no strikeouts. It’s the first outing of his young big-league career in which he failed to record a strikeout. Five of those hits and a walk came against players swinging from the left side.