MINNEAPOLIS _ Down a run going into their final at-bat on Saturday, the Mariners had their three best hitters coming to the plate and even got a gift from the Twins to help their chances at a comeback.
Instead, they trudged off the field following a 3-2 loss to the lowly Twins, wondering how much their failure to pull out a win damaged their already long-shot playoff chances.
A loss to any team hurts, but that it came against the worst team in baseball made it seem that much more costly. The Twins are destined for 100 losses and the Mariners are 1-4 against them this season.
The defeat dropped Seattle to 81-73 and dropped them 2 { games behind the second wild-card spot in the American League.
"It's disappointing," manager Scott Servais said. "With Detroit losing, we had a chance to make up a little ground. But we'll just have to show up tomorrow."
Seattle was set up to tie the score if not take the lead in the ninth inning.
The Mariners put the tying and go-ahead runs on base when Robinson Cano led off with a single to left field and Nelson Cruz reached first when third baseman Miguel Sano bobbled what appeared to be a certain double-play ball.
"I thought that was the break that we needed," Cruz said. "It's a shame, you know?"
But the Mariners failed to capitalize and Sano got some redemption for his earlier miscue.
Kyle Seager hit a hard chopper to third base and Sano made a leaping grab, hustled over to tag third base and then fired to first base for a double play. With Cruz on second, Adam Lind popped out to end the game.
"We had some chances late, but we didn't just get the big hit," Servais said.
The Twins got all three of their runs against Mariners starter Ariel Miranda, while Seattle's offense did little a day after looking so resurgent.
"It was not a real sharp night all around," Servais said. "Obviously, not a lot going offensively and Miranda wasn't as sharp."
Miranda pitched four innings, giving up the three runs on three hits with a walk and no strikeouts. But his fastball lacked the command and crispness of his previous outing.
"My fastball was a little off," Miranda said through an interpreter. "My secondary pitches were not very good. My breaking ball wasn't working, and when I had to throw my fastball it's when I gave up hits."
Miranda gave up a one-out solo homer to Jorge Polanco in the first inning on a misplaced fastball. The Twins made it 2-0 in the second inning when a leadoff walk to Kennys Vargas led to a run on a fielder's choice.
"He was up a little and looked like he was trying to find his mechanics," catcher Mike Zunino sad. "He didn't throw with the same conviction that he normally has."
The Mariners' two runs came on one violent, powerful swing from Nelson Cruz.
With Cano on first base, Cruz crushed a 3-2 fastball from Twins starter Tyler Duffey into the third deck in left field. MLB Statcast measured the blast at 493 feet, the second-longest this season behind Giancarlo Stanton's blast of 505 feet.
"I've had a few near there, but they've never measured that far," he said. "You never now with Statcast. You never how far it goes until they tell you."
More important than the impressive distance, it tied the score at 2-2.
But the game wouldn't remain tied for long.
The Twins retook the lead one pitch into the bottom of the inning. Sano ambushed the first pitch _ a fastball _ from Miranda to start the inning, yanking it over the wall in left field for his 24th homer of the season.
With an expanded and rested bullpen, Servais lifted Miranda after four innings and went to his relievers.
"He'd hung in there but we were at a point in the game where I thought, 'Let's just go to the bullpen,'" Servais said. "We weren't in a position to give up a whole lot more."
The trio of Drew Storen, Evan Scribner and Tom Wilhelmsen did a solid job of keeping the deficit at one run, working four scoreless innings. But the Mariner offense could never come through.
That the Mariners only mustered two runs against Duffey was an issue. The right-hander pitched seven innings, giving up two runs on four hits with no walks and four strikeouts. The Mariners' grind-it-out at-bats from the night before were replaced by rolled-over ground balls and weak fly balls.
"Guys were trying to get hits and have good at-bats," Servais said. "We were aggressive early in the game. We got pitches to hit that we didn't hit. Sometimes that happens."
What's more indicative of the Mariners' issues was that Duffey came into the game having given up 22 runs (19 earned) on 24 hits over 15 1/3innings in his previous four starts for an 11.15 ERA.
"The bottom line is that we didn't score enough runs," Cruz said flatly. "We should have scored more runs than we did today."
