If one was hoping for a second-half turnaround for the Mariners offense after they showed signs of life against the Padres before the All-Star break, tonight was like a sheet of cold water on the tender embers of those hopes. The Mariners looked hapless against the Astros, being held scoreless by Hunter Brown for six innings, then dominated by the Houston bullpen. Luis Castillo had a bad inning, but as we’ve seen time and time again, Mariners starters have to be perfect, and that still isn’t usually enough to earn them a win. The Mariners surrendered the AL West lead to the Astros tonight, and that’s what it felt like: surrender, as they played uncharacteristically sloppy defense, had uncompetitive at-bats, and once again squandered a solid performance from their starter.
Hunter Brown has a new hard sinker, and he had the Mariners on their toes tonight, even when they were able to put aside his lesser secondary stuff, which he had used heavily in his last meeting with the Mariners in May, when he struck out a season-high nine batters. Despite working him for 26 pitches in the first, the Mariners got nothing, as both JP Crawford and Josh Rojas struck out in deep counts. With two outs in the second, Jorge Polanco continued his hot hitting streak with a deep double into the gap (102 EV) for the Mariners’ first hit of the night, but Ty France grounded harmlessly into a sinker to quell the threat. This would be a theme of the night.
“You only get a few opportunities to score against good pitching,” Scott Servais said after the game. “You have to take advantage of them, and we haven’t been able to do that here lately.”
Time and again, Brown was able to put Mariners hitters into 0-2 counts by using the sinker for either called strikes or swings, and he was eventually able to win the battle even when hitters hurt his pitch count. By my count, through four innings, the Mariners had been in 0-2 counts four times, and in 1-2 counts three others, making seven of his 16 ABs in that time — i.e., a little less than half — ones in which they were at an extreme disadvantage in the count. By contrast, all three of his hits in that time had come on counts that were 1-0 (twice) and 2-0. I know that “hitters on good counts get more hits” isn’t the kind of incisive analysis you expect on Lookout Landing dot com, but the difference feels pretty stark.
The turning point of this game came early, when in the third inning, ninth-place hitter Trey Cabbage hit a fastball into the zone but over the middle of the plate for a double. Jose Altuve then bunted and Rojas threw the throw away — already the second infield error, a rough night for the normally safe left side of the Mariners’ infield — to allow the first run of the game to score. Castillo then stepped into a hole, hit Bregman with a pitch and walked Alvarez on four pitches. Yanier Diaz pounced on the first pitch he saw from Castillo, hitting a sinker at the plate for a two-run double to make it 3-0 Astros with no outs. Castillo was able to limit the damage there, getting Singleton to ground into a near-double play and then Pena to ground into an actual one, but the damage was done, both in the game and in the AL West standings.
“You have to play fair,” Servais said. “Normally that’s what we do. It didn’t happen tonight. The mistakes came together and put us three points ahead.”
The Mariners had a chance to respond in the next inning. Victor Robles, who always seems to be at the center of something good, singled with one out and then advanced to third on a single by Josh Rojas, finally making use of those 12 pitches he saw in his first at-bat that had ended in strikeouts. Then Julio walked to load the bases with two outs for Cal Raleigh, who lined a straight line to Altuve to blow the response challenge. What’s more frustrating: the Mariners not hitting at all, or the Mariners pushing with two outs and not getting it done? I’d say the latter because it feels so demoralizing when you get nothing done, but getting blown out, especially by mediocre-to-mediocre pitching, feels pretty bad, too.
The Mariners got another chance in the bottom of the fifth inning, with the first two runners reaching base after Luke Raley walked and Victor Robles was able to reach base on a bunt attempt, but JP Crawford flied out and Josh Rojas grounded into an inning-ending double play that crushed any hope of anything happening. The boos rained down lightly; they intensified with each inning, as the Mariners continued to hold scoreless.
That one wobble would be all it took for Castillo to take the loss tonight, despite pitching well, keeping the ball on the ground, and providing seven innings with the only damage he sustained coming in that third inning. Castillo calmly cruised through the sixth, helping his own cause by handling a Jon Singleton bunt attempt (!) like a champ, coming off the mound and throwing out the awkward Singleton, and Luke Raley made an excellent diving catch to rob Pena of a hit. After a simple two-pitch groundout from Meyers, Brown was back there for the bottom of the inning. Would this be the inning where the Mariners finally broke through after dispersing traffic through five innings and bringing Brown’s pitch count to 86?
This looked like a potential second turning point in the game, but the Mariners offense again couldn’t step up when it needed to. After two quick outs, Mitch Garver drew a four-pitch walk, but here’s a good sign of how unafraid opposing managers are of Seattle’s offense right now: Espada let Brown in to get the final out against Polanco (actually one of the Mariners’ best hitters tonight), and Polanco delivered, popping out to end the inning and crediting Brown with six scoreless runs on 102 pitches.
Even though Tayler Saucedo and Collin Snider defended the Mariners’ bullpen line, the offense had no answer for the Astros’ strong side of the bullpen, with Bryan Abreu, Ryan Pressly and Josh Hader mowing down hapless Mariners hitters with the calm precision of a country club lawnmower. At least it wasn’t an extra-inning loss — poor consolation, perhaps, for the 41,000 fans in attendance, a number that will likely drop as precipitously tomorrow as the Mariners’ playoff odds did tonight.