Mariners blow late lead, fall to Tigers 5-3 in series finale

DETROIT – Logan Gilbert didn’t have his usual crispness Sunday. Neither did the Mariners bullpen.

These things happen in baseball, as Mariners manager Scott Servais often likes to say.

It’s just, it’s sort of shocking, isn’t it, to see these things happen from Mariners pitchers?

The Mariners couldn’t hold on to an early lead and couldn’t complete a three-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers, falling 5-3 in the series finale Sunday afternoon before a Mother’s Day crowd of 20,160 at Comerica Park.

Gilbert couldn’t get out of the sixth inning, and the Mariners bullpen couldn’t throw strikes, as the Tigers (18-21) rallied for three late runs to take the lead.

The Mariners outscored the Tigers 14-2 in the first two games of the series, and looked in good position Sunday to finish the sweep. Didn’t happen.

Now 40 games in, they are back to .500.

They continue their nine-game, three-city road trip in the Eastern time in Boston starting Monday.

“I said before the game that it’s hard to sweep anybody,” Servais said. “We had chances today though.”

The Mariners pitching staff has been one of the best in the big leagues this season. And to be clear: Surrendering five runs in any game shouldn’t necessarily doom any team.

But with the inconsistent nature of the Mariners offense, the pitching staff has had to do the heavy lifting for this team for large stretches.

And it wasn’t so much that the bullpen blew a late lead Sunday. It’s how they blew it.

Seattle pitches issued five walks (and struck out just five batters), with one hit batter and three wild pitches from Gilbert.

“Not the sharpest that we’ve seen Logan,” Servais said. “The command was a little bit erratic. But then you look up and he still had the chance to get you through six innings. He hung in there with what he had today.”

The score tied 3-3, Gabe Speier came in to pitch the seventh inning and walked the first batter he faced – Detroit’s No. 9 hitter, Jake Rogers – after getting ahead in the count 0-2. Four straight balls followed.

Walking the leadoff hitter is never a great sign, and it was just the second walk Speier has issued this season – first since April 8.

Things got worse for Speier when pinch hitter Jonathan School followed with a single.

Speier did strike out Riley Greene for the first out of the inning.

That prompted Servais to call Matt Brash out of the bullpen.

Brash simply didn’t have it.

He did get Javier Baez to fly out to right field, but he wouldn’t record another out.

Brash walked Spencer Torkelson to load the bases, and then hit Nick Maton in the front foot on an 0-1 slider. That brought in Rogers from third base for the go-ahead run.

Brash then walked Andy Ibanez on four pitches – none of them particularly close – to bring in another run to make it 5-3.

Servais called Juan Then out of the ‘pen to get the final out of the inning, an Akil Baddoo groundout.

“Just an uncharacteristic outing of our bullpen,” Servais said. “Our bullpen has been awesome. All year long, they have been the anchor of our club, and they’ll continue to be.”

Gilbert pitched 5⅔ innings, allowing three runs on six hits, with one walk and four strikeouts. Notably, two of his wild pitches wound up factoring into two runs.

“It just comes down to execution,” Gilbert said. “It’s not really anything major. I felt fine. I didn’t have everything, but enough to battle through it and grind through it, and those are the ones that can kind of go either way.”

The Tigers had back-to-back singles from Zach McKinstry and Riley Greene to lead off the first inning. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch, and McKinstry then scored the game’s first run Baez’s groundout to shortstop.

Greene singled with two outs in the third inning and advanced to second on another wild pitch from Gilbert. Baez singled on the next pitch to drive in Greene to cut the Mariners’ lead to 3-2.

Gilbert had two outs in sixth inning and then gave up a soft double to Ibanez to left field. Servais summoned Trevor Gott, who surrendered a double to Akil to tie the score.

“I have all the faith in the world in the bullpen,” Gilbert said. “They’re the best in the league at what they do every day, so I have a ton of faith they’ll bounce back and go get ’em tomorrow.”

The Mariners had scored three runs in the third inning to take the lead and chase Detroit starter Joey Wentz.

J.P. Crawford, Ty France, Julio Rodriguez and Eugenio Suarez had consecutive singles off Wentz, and Teoscar Hernandez delivered a sacrifice fly to give the Mariners the lead.

They couldn’t add on from there, though.

Detroit used five relievers who combined to pitch 6⅓ shutout innings.