The Mariners were pushed to the brink of elimination Tuesday night, losing to the Astros 7-0.<\/p>\n
Logan Gilbert never found a rhythm in this one, allowing baserunners to lead off each of the first three innings. Over only four innings of work, Gilbert allowed 10 hits, walked two batters and struck out only three. He avoided disaster in both the first and second, but couldn\u2019t perform the escape act a third time, giving up a three-run homer to Christian Walker in the top of the third to open up a larger Astros lead, one that would never be threatened.<\/p>\n
\u201cShould have been a little more outside,\u201d Gilbert said on the home run pitch to Walker. \u201cIt was kind of middle low. Not a great spot. It was 1-0 but still you gotta get it to the spot that we\u2019re trying to go to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keeping the current rotation, Gilbert would be slated to start in the final game of the season Sunday. When asked about his feelings on making that start, he said, \u201cI mean, that\u2019s my job. I love pitching. Like, it\u2019s going to be taken away one day. So if I can have the ball, I want it. There\u2019s fans showing up that pay their hard-earned money to watch up play, regardless of the situation. So, you know, I owe it to them, to the organization, everybody. But honestly I just love pitching.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Astros jumped out in front quickly in the top of the first. Jeremy Pe\u00f1a reached with an infield single on a ball that forced J.P. Crawford to dive to his right. After Pe\u00f1a stole second on the first pitch of the next at bat, Yordan \u00c1lvarez grounded an RBI single through the right side to drive him in. The next two hitters singled as well to load the bases with nobody out. Despite a rough beginning to his start, Gilbert wiggled his way out of trouble and stopped the bleeding right there. In the process, he struck out Yainer D\u00edaz to pass Mark Langston for fourth on the Mariners\u2019 all-time strikeout leaderboard. The Mariners managed a couple of baserunners in the bottom half of the inning and made Cristian Javier labor a bit, but Julio Rodr\u00edguez flew out to the warning track to leave the runners stranded. After an inning, the M\u2019s trailed only 1-0.<\/p>\n
The vibes of this game were gross from the get-go and one of the few moments that commanded my complete attention came on a bungled appeal call in the top of the fourth. Cam Smith never touched first base while avoiding a collision with Josh Naylor, who was attempting to field an errant throw from Brock Rodden. Cal Raleigh, who was backing up on the play, applied a tag to Smith before he could return to the base, and first base umpire Marvin Hudson signaled the runner safe. The Mariners then formally appealed with Gilbert stepping off the rubber and throwing to first, and when Hudson again signaled Smith safe \u2014 objectively the wrong call, mind you \u2014 Dan Wilson attempted to challenge the call and was denied for taking too long. He came out of the dugout to mount a protest, which convinced the umpires to huddle and discuss it, but they ultimately decided to leave their decision the way it was.<\/p>\n
The play didn\u2019t end up having consequences \u2014 the Mariners did get through the inning unscathed despite an additional base hit by the following hitter \u2014 but it is going to allow me to beat the drum about my hatred for the modern appeal play. Hudson gets it wrong on the field twice, though his interpretation of the first tag by Raleigh seems ambiguous; Wilson said Raleigh\u2019s first tag during the play was because he thought the runner had made an attempt at second, a separate issue altogether. Either way, the rules allow for challenging a fact-based appeal, and Wilson was denied this opportunity for taking too long to challenge despite making said challenge immediately after attempting the formal appeal. Wilson apparently would\u2019ve had to submit the challenge after Raleigh\u2019s first tag, even though Raleigh was appealing something entirely different with it.<\/p>\n
These days, in a fashion that\u2019s emblematic of the sport as a whole grappling with its past, the line between archaic appeal play rules and instant replay challenges creates controversy more often than it doesn\u2019t. In this case, it resulted in the wrong call being made. If formal appeals are to be encouraged, then teams shouldn\u2019t be timed out of challenging incorrect appeal decisions immediately after they are made. MLB should probably find a way to sort out this weird gray area before it rears its ugly head in a more consequential moment.<\/p>\n
Anyway, the last three paragraphs were a testament to how uneventful this game was from the Mariners\u2019 side of things. I spent multiple innings writing that out and nothing of note happened in the meantime.<\/p>\n
In the sixth inning, the Astros tacked on an additional run with a solo homer to left by Isaac Paredes. It was around this time I switched over to the radio to take one of my last opportunities to hear Rick Rizzs, who is finishing up his final year in the booth calling Mariners baseball. I cherished every moment, even as he choked out a dejected call of an \u00c1lvarez two-run homer in the eighth to extend the Astros\u2019 lead and set the eventual final score. It\u2019s been talked about ad nauseam at this point, but one of the true calamities of the 2026 season is Rizzs getting stuck with one of, if not the most disappointing season in franchise history for his swan song. A true injustice.<\/p>\n
Tuesday night marked the fall equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and while the Mariners still need another loss or Rangers win to be officially eliminated from playoff contention, their loss to the Astros might as well have marked an end to summer in the baseball sense as well. The Mariners will not be playing meaningful fall baseball in 2026. For the 44th time in 50 seasons, the Mariners will head inside for the long winter as another team from their division keeps playing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mariners were pushed to the brink of elimination Tuesday night, losing to the Astros 7-0. Logan Gilbert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,75160,226001,99],"class_list":["post-858007","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\/858007","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=858007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}