Mariners get Sunday scaries, copy-paste first two games of series and turn in loss, 3-6

Mariners bats can’t overcome early hole and double-digit strikeouts

Who amongst us haven’t woken up on a Sunday morning still hazy with the memories of weekend times well spent, looked around at the work yet to be accomplished, and thought of all the corners that need cutting to accomplish said work. With the Yankees series looming starting tomorrow, the Mariners hastily finished up their series with Baltimore by copy-pasting work they did earlier in the series, mashing it together and calling it good enough for a not-sweep.

Rehashing Friday’s game, the Mariners got off to a poor start in this one when again one of their young starters failed to adjust to the ultra-aggressive Orioles lineup, resulting in yet another leadoff home run for Gunnar Henderson, who welcomed George Kirby’s second pitch of the game, a slider right into his lefty loop zone. Despite seeing two-thirds of Baltimore’s dangerous lineup in the first, Kirby managed to escape with just two runs surrendered, helped out by a Ryan Mountcastle GIDP when Kirby finally managed to get off the plate enough to jam Mountcastle, who like the rest of the Orioles was firmly in swing mode.

But the Orioles keep coming and they don’t stop coming, smash-mouthing their way through another run in the third—helped out by a costly error by catcher Seby Zavala, who overthrew second on an attempted caught stealing, allowing Jorge Mateo to reach third with one out—and then adding another two in the third, one on a home run on an elevated fastball Kirby served up to Ryan O’Hearn, primed and ready to swing at the second pitch of the at-bat. Two batters later, Colton Cowser got in on the fun, copying teammate Henderson’s work by taking a hung slider of his own all the way to the wall in deep center, narrowly missing a home run. Cowser would score off a base hit to Cedric Mullins, who entered today 2-for-34 in May but scalded a base hit of his own, and then further threatened with yet another stolen base, as the Orioles seemed to be able to steal at will off the Kirby/Zavala battery.

Kirby was able to cap the damage after that, working around a base hit to Henderson (on still another slider) in the fourth to post his first scoreless inning of the day, and then posting his first clean inning after that, and another one after that. But the Orioles clearly had a game plan against Kirby, and an effective one at that—it’s not often you see this many hard-hit balls against Kirby, and the damage here isn’t all the names one would expect. Couple that with just three strikeouts for Kirby, and this is definitely one to forget.

Kirby did hold the line enough that the Mariners could crawl back into things, but as they did yesterday, they hurt themselves early by squandering opportunities against Corbin Burnes for six innings first. Burnes is obviously a stellar pitcher, but the Mariners helped him out by expanding the zone, as they do, striking out 11 times over six innings. 11 times! In case you’re not a math wizard like me, that is one shy of two at-bats per inning ending in strikeouts, which is just not a path to victory no matter who is on the mound.

And Burnes wasn’t perfect, despite the strikeouts. The Mariners had an opportunity in the second, when Luke Raley led off by scorching a ball past Mountcastle at first, but Haniger and Canzone both struck out behind him (because two per inning, remember) to put the Mariners in a quick two-out hole. Dylan Moore then worked his first of two walks on the day, steadfastly refusing to chase, and really what they should do on the train to NYC is force the entire rest of the lineup to watch DMo’s at-bats from this Baltimore series Clockwork Orange-style. Luis Urías then popped his first of two hits on the day to get the Mariners on the board, so at least the Mariners weren’t turned away empty-handed.

Another squandered opportunity came in the fourth; with Cal Raleigh aboard on a single, Luke Raley smacked a double that Colton Cowser struggled to corral in right field. With two outs, Manny Acta sent Cal, who was promptly thrown out at home thanks to a dynamite relay throw from Jorge Mateo. It’s an understandable send—sort of—but also speaks to the level of desperation the Mariners are playing at to try to snatch up any possible scoring opportunity.

As they did yesterday, the Mariners did the bulk of their run-scoring late in this game, adding on a pair of runs in the seventh once Burnes was out of the game. Dylan Moore led off the seventh with a walk, because he is a Perfect Boy, and then Luis Urías doubled to bring Moore home and draw the. After another walk to Seby Zavala, Brandon Hyde called for old friend Cole Irvin. But Josh Rojas—who quietly had a very rough series—went after the first pitch he saw, grounding into a double play. In encouraging news, Julio went on to record a clutch two-out RBI (yay) on a line drive (more yay) that he scalded off the bat at 106 mph (even more yay), but Cal Raleigh flew out to end the Mariners’ best scoring threat of the day.

This is the problem with waiting until the seventh inning to score: opportunities to climb out of the run deficit hole become limited, and the trade-and-injury-thinned Mariners bullpen isn’t the lockdown, none-shall-pass version of its former self. Cody Bolton gave up another run in the eighth—Cedric Mullins had another base knock, this time for an RBI, thus equaling his hits for May in this one game—but with Craig Kimbrel looming like Tippi Hedron’s worst nightmare in the Baltimore pen, that run was fairly inconsequential in today’s game.

The Mariners now have to head to New York for a grueling four-game set with the equally tough Yankees; meanwhile, the Astros are 8-2 over their past 10 games, with an 11th win imminent after they took care of business against Milwaukee. The Mariners need to at least tread water against the Yankees, who will certainly be taking notes on the Orioles’ successes against the Mariners’ young pitching—original classwork, one assumes, rather than the slapped-together pastiche the Mariners turned in today.