Mariners’ struggles on the road continue as they drop series to Marlins
MIAMI – Any expectation of holding on to their lead in the American League West, a number that has decreased from 10 games to six games over the last five days, and riding it to their first division title since 2001 will require something more important than the Mariners acquiring pieces at the trade deadline.
They need a solution to remedy their inconsistent performances – both individual and team – in games away from the Pacific Northwest. The current trend of results isn’t tenable to a successful season.
For a brief moment, Mariners manager Scott Servais, the players in the dugout and the large smattering of Mariners fans in the small Sunday afternoon crowd at loanDepot park, thought Julio Rodriguez had tied the game in the bottom of the ninth.
With two outs and the bases loaded and Seattle trailing by two runs, Rodriguez hit a 2-1 fastball from Marlins closer Tanner Scott toward right field. The line drive had only a 91-mph exit velocity off the bat, but seemed like it was hit just high enough and just hard enough going to drop in for a single that would’ve scored two runs.
“Oh yeah, I thought he had just tied the game,” Servais said.
Instead, Miami second baseman Otto Lopez retreated on the sinking liner and made a difficult leaping grab with his arm fully extended to rob Rodriguez of the hit and secure a 6-4 victory for the Marlins.
“When you’re trying to make a comeback like that you need to catch a few breaks, you need a few things to go your way,” Servais said.
To win on the road, you also have to put yourself in position to not have to rely on late-game breaks to go your way. The Mariners haven’t done that with any sort regularity.
The Mariners dropped two of three to the worst team in the National League and have lost the first two series of this road trip. They fell to 18-23 on the road and are the only division leader with a losing road record. It’s a stark difference to their 27-12 record at T-Mobile Park.
Over their last four road trips, they’ve posted a 12-16 record, winning three-game series vs. the Astros and A’s, splitting a four-game series with the Yankees, and losing three-game series to the Twins, Orioles, Nationals, Royals, Guardians and now the Marlins.
That’s just not going to work.
“We certainly have a ton of confidence at home, but we haven’t been able to get going on the road,” Servais said. “I thought with today’s game outside of the first inning, we played a perfectly fine game. We just need a few big hits to come back in a game like that. But the consistency on the road just hasn’t been there. We have a lot of games to go. You are gonna have ups and downs throughout the course of the season. This trip it’s been a struggle for us.”
It started with Bryce Miller’s first inning of work where he allowed four runs.
Despite the Marlins propensity to swing at just about anything resembling a strike, Miller struggled to get ahead of hitters.
Why?
His misses were what baseball folks like to refer as “noncompetitive.” Basically, they are pitches that not even the freest of swingers would find reasonable enough to swing at. He struggled to command his best pitch – the four-seam fastball – particularly to left-handed hitters. It left him behind in counts and allowing the Marlins to hit him hard.
Jazz Chisholm jumped on Miller’s first pitch of the game, lining it to right field and turning it into a double. Miller came back to retire Josh Bell and Bryan De La Cruz. But he walked Jesus Sanchez gave up a single to RBI single to Jake Burger on a ground ball to left.
Getting out of the inning with one run allowed would’ve been ideal. Instead, he left a 2-1 fastball over the plate to Nick Gordon that was turned into a three-run homer that Servais labeled “a punch to the gut.”
“I knew they were going to be aggressive and against a lot of the lefties, I was trying to go up and away and I was just missing further to the arm side,” he said. “When I know they’re gonna be aggressive, I’m trying not to miss in the middle of the plate early. And I think I was just trying to be too fine and ended up falling behind by trying to get up and away.”
He gave up another run in the second inning on a bloop single to Chisholm and then served up a solo homer to Sanchez in the third inning on a misplaced split-finger.
Bryce Miller made it through only four innings, giving up six runs on six hits with a walk and three strikeouts. He saw how Logan Gilbert dominated the Marlins on Saturday but couldn’t execute to replicate the results.
“Logan did a great job yesterday and he was able to get ahead and attack the corners,” he said. “That’s what I need to be able to do, let them put it in play if they want, but just got to make good pitches. The ones they put in play today, they weren’t good pitches. So it’s on me.”
Even after a solid start in Cleveland where the Mariners got their only win, Miller’s up-and-down results mirror the Mariners overall issues.
In seven starts on the road this season, he’s posted a 2-3 record with a 5.54 ERA. In 39 innings pitched, he’s allowed nine homers with 12 walks and 23 strikeouts.
In eight starts at T-Mobile Park, Miller is putting up Cy Young-numbers. He has a 4-2 record with a 1.82 ERA. In 49 1/3 innings, he’s allowed three homers, walked four batters with 59 strikeouts.
Down 6-0 after three innings, the Mariners bullpen provided five scoreless innings to allow the offense to creep back into it against rookie right-hander Kyle Tyler, who was making his first MLB start.
Luke Raley smashed an opposite field two-run homer in the fourth inning. The Mariners added two more runs on a RBI fielder’s choice from Ryan Bliss and a run-scoring single from J.P. Crawford in the seventh.
In the ninth, Mitch Garver led off with a single and pinch-hitter Cal Raleigh worked a walk. But Bliss flew out to center and Dylan Moore struck out. Josh Rojas hit a hard single to center to load the bases with two outs to bring Rodriguez to the plate.