I don’t know what happened, you guys. I left to go camping on Saturday morning near Mt. Rainier and everything went to shit with the Mariners in the two days I was without cell service. I blame Internet trolls.
The Texas Rangers are fucking awful, so Friday’s 9-5 victory went absolutely according to plan. Logan Gilbert pitched into the sixth inning, almost giving us a quality start in the process, and the bullpen was fairly lights out from there. On top of which, we had a Kelenic bust-out game (a homer and 4 RBI); Abraham Toro’s consecutive games with a homer streak ended at four, but he still went 3 for 5 with a double and 2 runs scored; and every player in our lineup either had a hit, an RBI, and/or a run scored to contribute in some way to this dominating victory. Five stars, no notes!
Saturday’s 5-4 loss in extra innings was just fucking stupid. I’m getting the sense that Diego Castillo got a lot of crap for losing this one, but he’s so far down my shit list, he might as well be the second page of any Google search. For starters, how do we chase the Rangers’ starter in the fourth inning and only score two runs off of him? Furthermore, how do we find ourselves down 3-2 in the top of the ninth inning, before Ty France finally bails us out with a solo homer to send it to extras in the first place? These are the Rangers for Christ’s sake, and we let their long reliever pitch three shutout innings?! The ultimate travesty is blowing our first start from Tyler Anderson, who did exactly what you’d expect him to do: 5.1 innings of 3-run ball. That line epitomizes him so much it should be written on his tombstone.
The obvious culprit is the offense, who has been a throbbing, explosive success throughout the season in clutch situations, but went only 2 for 7 with runners in scoring position in this one. One of those hits came in the 10th, after Kelenic did his job getting the ghost runner to third. Jake Bauers popped up to second base, necessitating a J.P. Crawford 2-out RBI single.
The sneaky culprit is pitch sequencing, which I don’t entirely blame Castillo for. With their own ghost runner at second, trailing 4-3, the Rangers had catcher Jonah Heim at the plate. I don’t think anyone’s confusing him for Johnny Bench. Yet, for some reason, we started him off with four consecutive sliders to get to a 1-2 count (the fourth of which was fouled off) before throwing his first fastball. Then, he went right back to a fifth slider, middle-low and away that was jacked for the game-winning 2-run home run to right. This is supposed to be a strikeout pitch; why is Tom Murphy – by proxy for manager Scott Servais – calling for so many sliders early in the count to this guy, Jonah Heim, who again is nothing special?! I don’t understand, but he can throw triple digits. You FEATURE the fastball that hits triple digits, and you occasionally sprinkle in the slider to get swings and misses! THAT’S THE DEAL! Take it or leave it!
What can you say about Sunday’s game, other than it was a total meltdown by a bullpen guy who had otherwise been aces all season? Marco Gonzales seems like he’s slowly, but surely, turning things around; he had a quality start in this one (6 innings, 1 run) after nearly getting one against the A’s in his previous start. The offense even did enough, giving him a 3-1 lead after seven innings (though, again, seems a little feeble that we could only manage those three runs against a Rangers team this inept). But, the bullpen was pretty well gassed after the first two games of the series, so Erik Swanson was called upon to get the final three outs.
Narrator: “He got zero outs.”
They were swinging early and often against Swanson, just so you know what’s in his scouting report. He throws strikes now, in case you hadn’t heard. But, in this one, Swanson’s strikes were too meaty and juicy. The leadoff hitter singled on the second pitch thrown to him. The next guy hit a homer off of a slider hanging in the center of the plate on just his third pitch. That tied the game for Jonah “Nothing Special” Heim, who this time saw nothing but fastballs in his five pitches, before depositing the last one again to right field for the walk-off home run. I guess, you could question the pitch sequencing, but obviously he’d just hung a slider to the previous guy to blow the save, so maybe he didn’t have any feel for it. Nevertheless, when a guy gives up three runs without recording an out – to blow the save AND catch the loss – it’s hard to blame anyone else but the pitcher himself.
Still, don’t go searching for his family on social media and threaten them! God, what’s the matter with you people? If you’re a Mariners fan, you’re probably from the Pacific Northwest. And, if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, you do as we all do: passive aggressively talk shit behind their backs and subtweet the living daylights out of them! You don’t tag them, and you DEFINITELY don’t get into it with their friends and family. Have a little decorum, won’t you?
Look, I get it, that series sucked! The Rangers are one of the very worst teams in all of baseball. The Mariners – in spite of the lack of popularity of their recent deals – are still somewhat in contention for a wild card spot. But, you MUST beat teams like the Rangers, and ideally you should probably be sweeping them. They had these games somewhat in hand, and blew the final two. I just hope the hangover doesn’t continue as we head to Tampa and New York.
I’m sure the chatter on Twitter was endless about Kendall Graveman almost certainly locking down those last two games for saves. He looked phenomenal as usual in his first appearance with the Astros, getting 4 outs, three via strikeout. I’m not touching that one with a ten foot pole.