SEATTLE — In the end, it didn’t matter that their performance was so unlike the baseball they played this past week. Even if they had been brilliant or even better than they were on Sunday afternoon, the Mariners season would’ve ended with the 162nd game of the season.
With the Yankees defeating the Rays, 1-0, on a walk-off ground ball from Aaron Judge at Yankee Stadium and Red Sox rallying from a 5-1 deficit for a 7-5 win over the Nationals in D.C., the outcome of the game at a sold-out T-Mobile Park wouldn’t have mattered.
Obviously, the 7-3 loss to the Angels, where they trailed from the start was disheartening, maddening and frustrating right up until the top of the ninth inning at 3:52 p.m. when Seattle was officially eliminated from the postseason.
And then it became nostalgic.
With nothing left to play for and the outcome meaningless, manager Scott Servais stopped the game with one out in the top of the ninth to remove Kyle Seager from the game and allow the crowd of 44,229, who had spend the last five minutes chanting his name, to thank him for 11 seasons and 1,480 games played in a Mariners uniform.
The quiet kid from North Carolina, who possesses the dual disposition of doting family man off the field and “a total hard-ass” on the field wiped tears away as the crowd rose in ovation. He hugged teammates near the pitcher’s mound, many of them wiping away tears themselves.
With the Mariners not expected to pick up his $20 million club option next season, he will leave Seattle as a free agent, having never experienced a postseason game in his career.
This season was his closest of in a handful of near-misses to end a postseason drought that is now at 20 years and counting.
But that this team finished with 90 wins and 72 losses and played on the last day of the season for a potential postseason spot when it was picked to win around 70 by most predictive algorithms and prognosticators is an accomplishment.
Moral victories don’t earn trophies or postseason banners, but the success of this team is something the organization hopes will propel it forward into a 2022 season. Given the performance, the outside expectations will certainly increase with fans demanding an active offseason to replace Seager and supplement a roster by augmenting a payroll that’s been one of the lowest in baseball the last two seasons.
Just five days ago, Tyler Anderson took the ball on two days rest and was exulted as a hero when he pitched four innings against the A’s in place of the ineffective Yusei Kikuchi, helping Seattle to a win and set up this situation.
Part of the reason Anderson was able to make that start was because of his struggles against the Angels in the start previous to Tuesday where he gave up nine runs on nine hits in two innings.
He wouldn’t give up nine runs in this outing, but he also wouldn’t pitch two innings. Shohei Ohtani tagged Anderson with a missile of a solo homer on the third pitch of the game that silenced the crowd and set an unforgiving tone for the rest of the day.
Anderson gave up a single to Phil Gosselin, the next hitter, and then helped him advance to second with a wayward pickoff throw to first base. With two outs, Jack Mayfield, a Mariner for a handful of games this season, singled to left field to score Gosselin and make it 2-0.
After his teammates failed to capitalize on runners on first and second with one out in the first inning against rookie lefty Reid Detmers, Anderson issued a leadoff walk to Jose Rojas to start the second. A sacrifice bunt moved Rojas into scoring position allowing David Fletcher, who had been slumping before this series, to drive him home with a double into the left field corner.
An intentional walk to Ohtani and a single from Gosselin loaded the bases with no outs. Anderson’s only out of the second inning game on Jared Walsh’s sacrifice fly to deep left-center.
It was his final batter as manager Scott Servais went to his bullpen. Right-hander Yohan Ramirez would be the first of a parade of relievers used throughout the course of the game with mixed results.
There would be no comebacks. Seattle cut the lead to 4-2 in the second inning on an RBI singles from Jarred Kelenic and J.P. Crawford. But a two-run homer from Jared Walsh off lefty Anthony Misiewicz in the fourth was a dagger to the comeback.
