That was a relatively enjoyable loss.<\/p>\n
The Mariners lost 4-2 to the Reds on Tuesday, snapping a three-game win streak. They got dominated by Chase Burns early but chased him quick, then nearly clawed back into the game against the bullpen. The go-ahead hit remained elusive, and that was the difference, but this was overall an enjoyable one to sit through.<\/p>\n
To be fair, I love watching Elly De La Cruz play, and he made his presence known immediately. He led off the game working an eight-pitch at bat against Luis Castillo, then turned on a heater to hit a line drive homer out to right center.<\/p>\n
I also love watching Eugenio Su\u00e1rez play. He\u2019s one of my all-time favorite Mariners, and I generally root for him to succeed elsewhere. He got a middle-middle fastball to lead off the fourth and launched it to center field.<\/p>\n
And, hey, I love watching Castillo pitch, too. Other than the homers, he was pretty good on Tuesday. He picked up 11 whiffs, including seven on the four-seamer, which sat at a crispy 95 mph atop the zone all night. He gave up just two hard hit balls \u2014 the two homers \u2014 on 22 balls in play on the night. He threw tons of strike, went right after batters, and made it through seven innings giving up only three runs. It was pretty OK. He thought so, too.<\/p>\n
\u201dI think what helped me today is I didn\u2019t go with the mentality of trying to strike out every batter, but the mentality of going in, attacking the zone, and if they make contact, hopefully it\u2019s an out,\u201d Castillo said postgame.<\/p>\n
My enjoyment of this one was also partially due to low expectations. I wrote the other week that I don\u2019t really like to be a doomer about the Mariners and assume they\u2019re going to lose. But Burns is just so good, and the Mariners ran out a weird lineup without Julio Rodr\u00edguez or J.P. Crawford (each day to day with minor injuries). This didn\u2019t seem like a winning combo.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t. Burns was great. He got tons of chase and whiffs on his fastball-slider combo, picking up six strikeouts on the one-two punch. The Mariners couldn\u2019t get much going against him, and it was clear why the Reds just gave him a big ol\u2019 contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s kind of got that over the top thing, and getting comfortable to that and used to that, it makes a difference,\u201d Dan Wilson said after the game. \u201cAnd he\u2019s got the good velo that rides at the top, and you see that slider come out, and you\u2019ve got to make a quick decision. I thought he threw some good ones down tonight, and got us to chase a few down there below the zone. He\u2019s a tough at-bat when he\u2019s throwing that fastball at the top and that slider down below. It\u2019s a tough at-bat. You can\u2019t cover both. And that\u2019s what makes him so effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
The one thing the Mariners were able to do was make Burns work, drawing a pair of walks and working some deep counts. They got him out of the game after five, and started closing in on the Reds bullpen.<\/p>\n
In the sixth, Dominic Canzone led off with walk. Josh Naylor followed with a single \u2014 one of three hits for him on the day \u2014 to bring Luke Raley to the plate. Wilson instead called on Julio, who\u2019d started the game on the bench while nursing a minor injury. He battled and battled and worked a full count against seven straight sweepers from Tejay Antone. Then he got an eighth and hit a 110-mph one-hopper near short. Out of nowhere sprawled De La Cruz, who saved a run and potentially a big inning.<\/p>\n
In the seventh, Weston Wilson hit a solo homer to get the Mariners on the board and cut the lead to 3-1. It looked like the Mariners might get some more after three straight two-out walks. But Naylor, in his only at bat that didn\u2019t result in a hit, grounded out to strand the bases loaded.<\/p>\n
Julio cut the lead to 3-2 in the bottom of the eighth with a solo homer himself. That\u2019s another reason this game was great: Julio certainly does not seem significantly injured, and he had two great at bats.<\/p>\n
But Michael Rucker gave up a solo homer himself in the top of the ninth to extend the lead back to two runs. And the Mariners couldn\u2019t get anything going in their half of the inning and lost 4-2. It was nearly a very fun game, and so I\u2019ll settle for a pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That was a relatively enjoyable loss. The Mariners lost 4-2 to the Reds on Tuesday, snapping a three-game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,75160,226001,99],"class_list":["post-777380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners-game-recaps","tag-seattle-mariners-scores-standings","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}