The opportunity was wasted and the reasons for it were avoidable, and anything but typical of the Mariners and their success in 2021.
On a night when the Red Sox lost to the American League East-leading Rays, giving the Mariners a chance to make up one of the games that was lost over the weekend in the race for the second wild-card spot, they instead frittered away a victory against a team they simply don’t beat very often.
A series of mistakes in the field and un-made plays on defense that are normally executed with regularity, and multiple failures to hit in key situations when needed resulted in a 4-3 defeat against the Astros.
While all four runs were “allowed” under baseball scoring, they were also avoidable to the point where the Astros should have been held to perhaps two runs.
Instead, the Mariners remain 4.5 games behind Boston.
Seattle got a serviceable start from right-hander Chris Flexen, who struggled in his previous outing against the Astros back on July 27th, which was the evening of the contentious and now infamous Kendall Graveman trade. He allowed seven runs on nine hits that night and just trouble finding the strike zone.
Flexen pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowing two runs on eight hits with two walks and four strikeouts. That he was able to pitch into the sixth was a bit of and accomplishment considering his command was less than typical in the first two innings and spotty at times, inflating his pitch count early.
He also didn’t get much help from his teammates when he was working through those command issues.
In the first inning, after allowing a one-out single to Michael Brantley and walking Carlos Correa, Yordan Alvarez hit a rocket to center field. Jarred Kelenic retreated quickly on the ball, but his angle on it was a little off and as the ball tailed away from him, he was forced to spin back to make the catch. He didn’t. It hit off the palm of his glove and dropped to the ground. Because Correa had to hold up on the play to see if Kelenic would make the grab, only one run scored and Alvarez was limited to a single.
Correa was able to make it to third on the play. After Flexen issued a walk to Yuli Gurriel, Kyle Tucker lifted a fly ball to mid centerfield. Kelenic was able to get his feet set up early to make a strong throw to home as Correa tagged up. His throw carried all the way to home plate, but catcher Tom Murphy had moved up a little in front of the plate. It was just enough to where his reach-back tag was about 2 inches away from touching Correa on his headfirst slide.
It would be the only two runs Flexen allowed. He allowed a runner to reach in every inning but the fourth, but he was able to re-find some command with his cutter and make enough pitches with runners on base to keep the Astros from adding to the lead.
He exited the game with two outs in the sixth, having allowed a double to Martin Maldonado. With the top of order and Jose Altuve coming to the plate for the the fourth time in the game, manager Scott Servais went to his bullpen. Right-hander Casey Sadler came on and retired the diminutive Altuve on one pitch for a groundout to end the inning.
The Mariners did get one of the runs back in the second inning. Jose Marmolejos, who was called up before the game and was making his first plate appearance at the big-league level since May 19, smoked a misplaced 1-2 cutter from Astros starter Luis Garcia over the wall in right field for a solo homer.
Seattle took a brief lead in the bottom of the sixth inning when a little bit of strategy paid off once Garcia left the game after walking Kyle Seager and giving up a single to Ty France.
Houston manager Dusty Baker went to left-hander reliever Brooks Raley, who got two quick outs on Abraham Toro’s comebacker to the mound that was turned into a double play.
But with two outs and Marmolejos coming up to the plate, Servais went to his bench for pinch hitter Dylan Moore, who in his previous two at-bats versus Raley had a walk and grand slam.
Since Raley had to stay in the game to face Moore, it brought Houston pitching coach Brent Strom out of the dugout for a visit.
Whatever was said wasn’t executed.
Moore jumped on a 1-0 curveball from Raley, sending it over the wall in left center for a two-run homer and 3-2 lead.
But the defensive miscues came back to haunt the Mariners again in the eighth inning. Right-hander Joe Smith allowed a leadoff single to Yuli Gurriel. On the throw in from the outfield, shortstop J.P. Crawford misplayed the throw, letting it hit off his glove and bounce away. Gurriel hustled to second and then scored moments later on Kyle Tucker’s single to right field.
Another defensive letdown allowed the Astros to take the lead for good. After Tucker stole second, he would score on Jake Meyers single to left field. But should he have scored after stumbling and falling initially? Moore, who was playing left field, seemed resigned to throwing the ball to second and not allowing Meyers to advance on a throw home. But when he picked up the ball in the outfield, Tucker was only reaching third base as the go-ahead run. Instead, there was no play at the plate as Tucker scored.
The Mariners failures weren’t just in the field. They also failed to hit situationally. They left runners at third base in three innings. But the most egregious was the fifth. Luis Torrens led off with a double and immediately moved to third on a balk from Garcia. But he stayed there and watched Jarred Kelenic fly out to very shallow center, Tom Murphy strike out and Mitch Haniger also strike out after Crawford worked a walk.
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