Mariners accidentally play spring training game in late May, lose to Nationals 9-0
Sub the Padres in for the Nationals and I think I watched this exact game this spring
After getting back in the win column with a high-flying victory last night, the Mariners promptly squandered that goodwill with a sorry showing against the Nationals, playing some sloppy baseball that resulted in a 6-0 loss and another ding to their AL West lead, which is now down to a fully-Ozempic’d half of a game.
It’s reasonable to expect some rust from George Kirby as he gets back to games on the biggest stage, but it’s still tough to have a spring training game played in late May, which is what this looked like. Kirby had a great first inning, setting down the side in order with two strikeouts, but struggled after that. He hung a slider to Luis García Jr. for a solo home run and followed it up by going to a full count against Josh Bell, who also homered.
The old saying is solo homers won’t kill you, but they become significantly more potent when paired with a three-run inning full of largely self-inflicted damage. Kirby was able to get his first two outs, but then walked García Jr. He followed that up by hanging a slider to Bell, who shot it past Ben Williamson, shifted well over against the lefty Bell. Contact merchant Robert Hassell III reached across the plate for a splitter and punched it into left field, prompting a throw home from Arozarena that wasn’t close, allowing García to score. Still trying to get that third out, Kirby sent a first pitch curveball dead red to José Teña, he of the robust 83 wRC+. Teña did his job and crushed the pitch to left, and another off-target throw from the outfield as well allowed two more runners to score, putting the Mariners in an early hole that would only deepen over the night.
Kirby surrendered one more run to bring his total to six on the night, as he again left a first-pitch slider on the plate for James Wood, who turned in one of the bigger blasts we’ve seen at T-Mobile Park. The slider and splitter both seem to be more sluggish to return to shape for Kirby; the slider and splitter each got just one whiff in nine and six swings, respectively, and the slider’s location was overall flat and too much on the plate.
But the bigger disappointment came from the rest of the team, which didn’t have the excuse of having a late start to the season. Once again, the Mariners were sloppy, making errors that went in the scorebook as such—Rowdy Tellez misfiring a ball at first—as well as other mistakes. Julio’s play in the outfield remains above reproach; his fellow outfielders, less so, with the off-target throws from Arozarena and one time late in the game when Leody Taveras seemed to lose a ball in the lights, allowing a double that would eventually come around to score two more runs.
Meanwhile, the bats were flat against the veteran Trevor Williams; in a cruel reversal of last night’s game, tonight it was Williams in the driver’s seat, getting the Mariners to hit quickly into outs, weak-contact groundballs and harmless flyballs. There were a couple of unlucky hard-hit balls—J.P., Randy, and Polanco all had balls in play with a .590 xBA or better—but mostly the Mariners sleptwalk through six innings, and then also failed to add on against Washington’s non-leverage arms coming out of the bullpen, getting shut out entirely.
But one of the things that spring training brings is a parade of new arms, and we saw that tonight. Most excitingly was the long-awaited Mariners debut of Jackson Kowar, who worked around a double to post a scoreless inning. His four-seamer topped out at 98.5 and averaged 98, and he got two of his three outs on his “deathball” gyro slider, including a swinging strikeout of Hassell.
Tonight also brought the MLB debut of Blas Castaño, who will likely be returned to Tacoma when Bryce Miller returns from the IL either Saturday or Sunday. Castaño had to battle more traffic than Kowar, issuing back-to-back walks to Wood and Lowe, but was able to get a pair of groundouts to end the inning without damage. We here at LL love a debut.
What we do not love is tonight’s game, which was a real clunker from start to finish. Brad Lord relieved Williams in the seventh and the Mariners got two on, but Leody Taveras was called out on a borderline strike three call to end the inning. The Nationals added another one on a Robert Hassell III solo bomb off Castaño, out to work another inning. Solo shots don’t kill you. Until they do. With two outs, Castaño got a little unlucky as Dalen Lile crushed a pitch to right field that Taveras lost in the lights, which then put Castaño in a tough spot, and he served up a first-pitch two-run double to Wood, which made longtime good-James-Wood fan John Trupin very happy but Mariners fans unhappy. At that point, though, the game was basically over, and Castaño got to come back for the ninth and get his first career strikeout, so at least there’s one tiny good thing—other than Jackson Kowar’s return— to come from tonight’s game.
More worryingly, though, is the red-hot Astros nipping at the heels of the Mariners, who are now clinging to the narrowest of leads in the division. Thankfully, the Astros move past the punchless Athletics and start a series with the surging Rays; the Mariners have one more game against the Nationals to try to win a very winnable series and hold their narrow strip of ground to finish May leading the West.