TORONTO _ In the early days of the 2018 season, there was a growing panic about setup man Juan Nicasio and the lack of velocity on his fastball. Brought in to be the eighth-inning man before closer Edwin Diaz at the not cheap sum of $17 million over two seasons, Nicasio's fastball was sitting around 92-93 mph in his first few outings and led to a reasonable amount of legitimate concern, which he shrugged off.
Eventually as he predicted, the velocity returned to his fastball, but with it has come reduced and at times nonexistent command of the pitch and that's a bigger issue than before.
On Wednesday night, Nicasio slogged his way through his worst outing in his brief Mariner tenure, giving up four runs on five straight hits and turning a one-run lead into an eventual 5-2 loss to the Blue Jays.
Brought in to protect a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning, Nicasio served three straight doubles to Josh Donaldson, Yangervis Solarte and Justin Smoak to allow two runs to score. Whether it was his slider that seemed to have no quality break or his fastball that sat at 96 mph but looked impossibly straight, none of his pitches could stay out of the middle of the plate.
The string of doubles against Nicasio briefly came to an end when Kevin Pillar rocketed a ball into left field. It scored another run to make it 4-2, but Pillar was thrown out at second base. It was the only out that Nicasio would get in his outing. Moments later, Russell Martin laced a double into left-center that ended Nicasio's outing.
Manager Scott Servais went to right-hander Erik Goeddel, who eventually ended the run-scoring carousel, but not before allowing the fourth run of the inning, which belonged to Nicasio, to score.
Four runs in what is supposed to be a lockdown inning is far from optimal.
But that isn't the only place where the Mariners were lacking on the night. They went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 runners on base.
They scored just two runs against Blue Jays starter Jaime Garcia. It should have been more since Garcia wasn't particularly good on the night. The lefty had minimal command or even control of his pitches as evidenced by five walks and a hit batter in five innings pitched. That the Mariners didn't score more than two runs were based largely on their failure to get a key and their own baserunning mistakes. Yes, the latter premise isn't a new development.
The Mariners got another solid if not lengthy start from Wade LeBlanc. The veteran lefty worked five innings, allowing just one run on four hits with no walks and three strikeouts.
His only run allowed came in the fourth inning with Seattle leading 2-0. Facing leadoff hitter Teoscar Hernandez to start the inning, the normally pinpoint LeBlanc left a two-seam fastball over the middle of the plate. At just 86 mph, Hernandez wasn't going to miss that kind of gift. He smashed into the second deck in center field. MLB statcast measured the blast at 440 feet.
