Quiet bats doom Mariners in loss to Tigers
SEATTLE – It wasn’t as bad as losing to the Chicago White Sox, which they’ve done this season. And they’ve endured worse defeats – lopsided and close – that left them shaking their heads and fans in raging disgust.
With a 162-game season and all the variances of those games over sixth months, the better or more talented team doesn’t win every night.
So, losing to what’s left of the Detroit Tigers wasn’t necessarily an improbable or unexpected outcome even with Luis Castillo on the mound for Seattle.
But everything about the Mariners’ 4-2 loss on Tuesday night had that familiar stench of stagnant offense and subpar execution that turned a 10-game lead in the division into a one-game deficit in the span of 25 games.
It’d be easy to call it a clunker when few things went right with their mistakes, and there were more than a few, exacerbating the outcome.
But the trade deadline didn’t fix all that was so glaringly wrong with the Mariners in the months leading up to it. They were still held scoreless on Sunday and looked not much better after a day off on Monday. At least they could point to Philadelphia All-Star starter Zack Wheeler as a reason for their minimal output a few days ago.
The Mariners were only marginally better against Tigers starter Keider Montero and four relievers.
They were held to two runs on five hits while striking out 14 times. And, really, the second run and last hit were a gift when center fielder Parker Meadows and right fielder Colt Keith couldn’t decide who should catch Jorge Polanco’s deep fly ball to right-center. Each player looked to the other to make the catch as the ball dropped between them to allow a gift run to score with two outs in the ninth.
And one of those trade acquisitions – veteran hitter Justin Turner – was struck on the hand by a 95-mph fastball from one-time Mariners reliever Will Vest in the seventh. Turner remained in the game to run the bases but was pinch-hit for in the ninth inning with a runner on first base.
Castillo gave the Mariners a workable start against a lineup that featured roughly eight players the average baseball fan and even a large percentage of fantasy baseball fans have heard of before the game.
By definition of the metric, it was a quality start – six or more innings pitched and three or fewer runs allowed.
He pitched six innings, allowing three runs on six hits with no walks and nine strikeouts. But he worked one clean inning without a base runner and got minimal help from his defense.
Detroit scratched out its first run in the fourth on Meadows’ two-out single up the middle.
The Tigers added two more in the fifth, taking advantage of Luke Raley’s misplayed ball.
Raley did provide the Mariners’ only run for the first eight innings, smashing a solo homer to center off Montero in the bottom of the fifth.