The most frustrating thing about tonight\u2019s 6-5 extra-innings loss: it was a winnable game, if just a few things had gone differently. But the mistakes compounded for the Mariners, ultimately delivering a loss to open up the Florida leg of their road trip – always a tough road trip for the Mariners, who haven\u2019t won a series in Miami since 2011.<\/p>\n
Those looking for an antidote to the \u201cBryan Woo struggles on the road\u201d narrative (it\u2019s me I\u2019m those) would be disappointed by Woo\u2019s outing today. The Marlins made a ton of hard contact off Woo early, and although he was able to navigate around a pair of singles in the first, getting back-to-back strikeouts to end the inning, he wouldn\u2019t be so lucky in the second: after falling behind Marlins slugger Owen Caissie 1-0, he left a fastball in the lefty loop zone that Caissie demolished for a solo homer.<\/p>\n
That itself wouldn\u2019t have been so bad, especially after Woo got his next two outs, but nine-hole hitter Javier Sanoja ambushed a first-pitch fastball and then advanced first to third on a Liam Hicks single on a pitch high and out of the zone, his second of the day. Woo then made things worse for himself, spiking a slider for a wild pitch that brought in the Marlins\u2019 second run of the day.<\/p>\n
The Marlins kept nibbling away at Woo in the third, pesking around another run despite two outs and a savvy challenge from the Mariners on a very nice play by Cole Young against the speedy Xavier Edwards. But despite getting a boost from his defense, Woo couldn\u2019t work around a single to Griffin Conine given up in his next at-bat, walking Caissie with some nibble pitches to push Conine into second and then surrendering a hit on the sweeper to Jakob Marsee to make it 3-0. The Marlins added a fourth run in the fourth inning; Hicks doubled off a slider and advanced to third on some fielding misadventures from Victor Robles, and then scored on a sacrifice fly (despite a very nifty catch from Luke Raley).<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Marlins starter Max Meyer was perfect the first time through against the Mariners, deploying his pair of sweepers with devastating effectiveness. The only batter who really made him work the first time through the order was Cole Young, who executed one of his platonic-ideal Cole Young at-bats, going from 0-2 and a called strike three, smartly challenged by Young, to working the count full and almost getting the Mariners\u2019 first hit on a hard-hit ball that Marlins first baseman Liam Hicks was just able to smother.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was – as it has so often been this year – Randy Arozarena who delivered the Mariners\u2019 first hit of the day in the fourth, taking advantage of a poorly-located sweeper for a line-drive single; unfortunately, he\u2019d be cut down trying to steal for what would be the final out of the inning.<\/p>\n
Cal Raleigh, who was at bat when Arozarena got thrown out, would lead off the fifth with a double then be small-balled around for the first Mariners run of the day, and the Mariners got a second run in that inning when Cole Young jumped on a fastball identical to one he\u2019d just fouled off in the first pitch of the at-bat: this time Young leaned on it, pulling it over the right-field wall for a solo homer that cut the Marlins\u2019 lead in half.<\/p>\n
The Mariners had their best scoring chance in the sixth and let it slip through their fingers, finally taking advantage of some shoddy command from Meyers and loading the bases with no outs on two walks and an opposite-field single from J.P. Crawford. The Marlins brought in flamethrowing reliever Michael Peterson to try to act as the fireman and prevent and runs from scoring, and he did his job\u2014or rather, the Mariners did his job for him. Dominic Canzone chased after some high heat for a grounder that turned into an out at home. Cal Raleigh couldn\u2019t catch up with 99 on the plate for the second out of the inning, and Josh Naylor – not any king of bat speed – grounded out to end the inning. NOBLETIGERS are the worst kind of tigers.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the Mariners squandered another opportunity in the seventh after a leadoff double from Luke Raley – off a lefty, even! If there\u2019s one bright spot to take from this game it\u2019s that Raley has looked much better lately after what was a very tough June for him. Young advanced him to third on a deep flyout that he just missed knocking over the wall for a game-tying homer, but the bottom of the order couldn\u2019t pick the run up.<\/p>\n
The Mariners had another great scoring opportunity in the eighth, after some good work from J.P. Crawford working a leadoff walk off the lefty King, and then some bad work by Marlins reliever Calvin Faucher, who hit Randy with a 97 mph fastball, leaving him in obvious distress. But Canzone again couldn\u2019t connect, trying too hard to make something happen and striking out chasing a curveball in the dirt. Cal Raleigh battled for nine pitches, fighting off some tough breaking balls and declining to chase after the curveball that got Canzone, getting a sweeper he could drive for an RBI double, bringing the Mariners to within a run.<\/p>\n
The Mariners would tie it up and then go ahead on some good old-fashioned Chaos Ball, courtesy of Josh Naylor, who rapped a single past second baseman Edwards for the game-tying run; Naylor would then get tangled up with Edwards while making his turn at first, allowing him to get to second on an obstruction call. Naylor made it to third on a fielder\u2019s choice out and then Cole Young put up yet another great at-bat, working a tiring Faucher for 10 pitches and eventually earning a walk. The go-ahead run, coming in on a wild pitch with Victor Robles at-bat, can be directly credited to Young pushing Faucher to the brink.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, all that work would go for naught when pinch-hitter Heriberto Hern\u00e1ndez leaned on a pitch from Gabe Speier, trying to sneak a fastball past the righty in a full count, for a game-tying homer. Maybe frustrated, Speier then walked pinch-hitter Esteury Ruiz on four pitches, none of which were particularly close; Ruiz would get to third but that\u2019s as far as he would get, as Speier, despite missing his swing-and-miss-stuff, was able to clear the inning without further damage.<\/p>\n
On to the ninth in a tied game, then, with the Marlins bringing in their closer, former Ray Pete Fairbanks, pitching two days after a fairly disastrous outing against the Athletics. Despite a two-out single from Randy Arozarena, Fairbanks was able to put the Mariners away in the top of the inning.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz spun a perfect 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth to keep the Mariners in it, but the Mariners weren\u2019t able to score their Manfred Man, with pinch-runner Weston Wilson foolishly getting thrown out at third on a Cal Raleigh groundout, erasing the Mariners\u2019 best opportunity to score and essentially sealing the loss. That left Michael Rucker to try to contend with the Marlins\u2019 high-flying offense and things went about as you\u2019d expect, with the Marlins walking it off.<\/p>\n
More than anything else – not Woo\u2019s hard contact and continued road struggles, or Speier allowing the game-tying homer, or Michael Rucker being pressed into high-leverage service again – it was the back-to-back squandered scoring opportunities in the sixth and seventh that sunk the Mariners in this game. To look on the bright side, there are a lot of good things that happened in this game: continued traffic on the bases, hitters making adjustments against a tough pitcher in Meyer, Raley hitting off a lefty, Colt Emerson making some solid plays at short, Cole Young continuing to put up impressive plate appearances, a clean inning from Mu\u00f1oz. But that\u2019s cold comfort for a team that\u2019s struggled with consistency and struggled on the road, staring down the barrel of yet another tough East Coast road trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most frustrating thing about tonight\u2019s 6-5 extra-innings loss: it was a winnable game, if just a few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,213516,213517,82],"class_list":["post-787378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners-game-recaps","tag-seattle-mariners-scores-standings","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}