Things get rocky in Texas, but the Mariners solidify the series win to set the season tone

With Houston having their worst start since 1969 and the World Series champion Texas Rangers looking more beatable than last year, Seattle is taking advantage.

One of the beautiful things about baseball is how few of the narratives are linear. One hundred and sixty two games. In a little less than a month of play it is incredibly easy to say things haven’t really started to matter, not yet. The standings will shift drastically. The roster will churn. And yet... a first series against a division rival, in their home stadium, and the rival most likely to give us trouble. Not only a rival, but the defending World Series Champions. Such a game not only matters, it can set the tone for an entire season. The Seattle Mariners set that tone by battling to a narrow victory, winning game three and the series with a score of 4-3 against the Texas Rangers.

Raymond Carlin III-USA TODAY Sports

One firm advantage Seattle has against Texas, and against any team really, lies in the strength of their pitching. The starting rotation was considered by many to be the best in baseball coming into the season, but the actual results in the first week or so of games were more mixed, and further sunk by a lack of any real backing by the offense.

The starter for the Mariners today was Luis Castillo, their rock, La Piedra. He has been a curious case for the Mariners this year in that at times, especially in his first few games, he struggled with some command issues. Overall though, his results have been pretty good, and he has been entrenched in the top ten of pitchers in terms of fWAR. The shakiness to start the season has warmed up to a more concrete form. Today’s game was a mini clone of that season arc, with iffy command having him falling behind in many counts, especially in the first few innings and especially missing with the slider too far off the plate to fool anyone.

Before Castillo could take the mound, it was the Mariners offense that kept to the theme and set the tone in their favor at the first opportunity. Julio Rodríguez started the game with a single into left-center, working a 2-2 count before turning around a middle fastball from Rangers’ starter Andrew Heaney. Then Mitch Haniger scorched a ball into left field, 108.6 MPH off of the bat with a .900 xBA, only for Wyatt Langford to make a leaping catch. Raleigh popped out, and would-be last out France came up to the plate. The only thing out that at bat was the 2-0 pitch Ty sent out of the ballpark over the right field wall. It was his first home run of the season, giving the Mariners the early 2-0 lead, and something the underlying data was telling us would only be a matter of time before it happened.

A Jorge Polanco fly-out ended that inning, Luis Castillo’s day began. It started well enough with Marcus Semien hitting a pop up that likely would have parachuted in if not for a ranging Dylan Moore making a great catch. Corey Seager started down 0-2 swinging through a fastball and a slider, and then hit a ball 107.4 MPH off of the bat, with an xBA of .770... where it was tracked down relatively easy by Mitch Haniger, not needing the speed or the hops to put Seager away like Langford did him in the top of the inning. Next up was Nathaniel Lowe, and on a fifth pitch, a 1-2 slider far too middle, he halved the Mariners early lead with a home run to right-center, his first of the season. It would have been a home run in only six out of thirty major league ballparks, both stadiums in L.A. and N.Y., in Cincy, and of course in the Costco warehouse that is Globe Life Field.

La Piedra bounced back with a swinging strikeout of Adolis García, getting him to chase the slider, but it was the second inning where his command fell apart. After needing 18 pitches to get through the first inning, he ended the second at 45. Evan Carter started the inning with a fly out, but Josh Smith came up next with a liner to the right field corner. Haniger bobbled the ball, and the would-be double became a double and an E9 with a runner on third. Wyatt Langford worked a full count, drew a walk, and went on to steal second base. Ezequiel Durán was next up and popped out, but not before working a full count as well. Last batter of the inning Andrew Knizner continued the trend working a 3-2 count, and fouled some off so that it was on the ninth pitch when Castillo was finally able to execute a put away pitch, landing a 96.9 MPH fastball on the outside edge of the plate.

For the next several innings the Mariners offense was in cruise control, only it was less cruising and more a Tesla auto-piloting off of a cliff. They went down 1-2-3 in the second, third, and fourth innings, and through that many Andrew Heaney was only at 43 pitches. This became particularly dire in the fourth inning. After the first two, Castillo started to sharpen, both his command and his results. Mostly, because the first pitch home run Josh Smith hit against him (and his first of the season) as the second batter up was on anything but a good pitch, a fastball middle and in the upper half of the zone.

MLB Gameday

After that Luis Castillo didn’t allow any more damage, that inning or in the game. He lasted through six innings landing the quality start, giving up two earned runs on only four hits, walking two, and striking out six.

When La Piedra finished his night, he did so with his team having regained the lead, in the top of the fifth inning when they were finally able to make Andrew Heaney look mortal again after the first. Dylan Moore only needed to see the first pitch of the inning, a meatball of a changeup, to line one into left 105.1 off the bat for a double. Mitch Garver grounded out to make room for Luis Urías. It only took two pitches, and Urías jumped on a fastball at the top of the zone, hitting his second home run of the season and giving the Mariners a 4-2 lead.

If the Mariners strength lies mostly in their pitching, for the Rangers it lies in their offense, and they would prove a near equal match-up, with a little help from a sloppy defensive play. Ryne Stanek was the first from the bullpen to come into the game, and has been a welcome addition to that squad. After getting Josh Smith to a 2-2 count, he froze him, getting a little lucky landing a fastball down the middle that Smith had fouled off in the same location three pitchers earlier. Wyatt Langford next hit what should have been an easy grounder, but Dylan Moore botched making the grab, and he was safe at first. Durán started out 0-2 by sitting on a first pitch strike and swinging through a second one, but was able to catch his bat up and foul off another five pitches before falling to an away pitch on the corner for a called strike, the eighth pitch in an 0-2 count.

Two outs, both strikeouts, and one man on with an error, and things didn’t look so bad for Stanek. Enter Seattle Mariners killer, Jonah Heim, pinch hitting for Andrew Knizner, with the top of the order due up after him. Jonah Heim singled, but at no fault of Stanek’s, as Heim had chased out of the zone for a 98.8 MPH fastball, driving it into left field and moving Langford to second. Marcus Semien came up next, and the 2-2 pitch he hit for an RBI single you could say was Stanek’s fault, as it was right down the middle. Enter, Gabe Speier. The Speier Choir was singing on high when he set down Corey Seager, making him look utterly silly as he couldn’t hold back a check swing on a pitch well above the zone, a sinker that instead chose to float.

The Mariners offense wouldn’t threaten again, the two home runs a saving grace against their zero walks on the night and eleven collective strikeouts, only amassing five hits the whole game. Luckily, it was still enough. Speier came back out in the eighth and only allowed one hit, a 3-2 line drive over the head of a leaping Urías into left for a single, and all three outs came on much more playable contact, Gabe’s wheelhouse.

Andrés Muñoz came in to work the bottom of the ninth, and with the narrow lead. Wyatt Langford popped out to Polanco, Travis Jankowski pinch it for Durán only to hit an easy chopper back to Muñoz, and then up to bat came Jonah Heim. One easy grounder later, and Muñoz had the save and the Mariners the series win.

With today’s win the Seattle Mariners now sit alone at the top of the American League West. The Houston Astros have had their worst start since 1969, and the Texas Rangers now are the ones who must attempt to play catch up, for now at least. Games, series like this can help set the tone for the season, but with the pitching starting to lock in to the expected elite levels and the team having won their third series in a row, they are more than setting the tone, they are finding their rhythm.