Late Dominic Canzone heroics not enough as Mariners fall to Orioles and lose series
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – The offensive explosion displayed by the Seattle Mariners in the first game of their series against the Baltimore Orioles appears to have been a mirage, as the past two games saw them fall flat at the plate. Seattle avoided getting shutout today, unlike last night, but the Mariners weren’t able to do enough to get them the win through nine innings and failed once again to score in extra innings. Dominic Canzone’s clutch solo blast, bat flip included, tied things up in the bottom of the ninth in dramatic fashion, but Seattle couldn’t keep the momentum going their way and drop this series to the best team in baseball after they very well could’ve had a sweep of everything had gone right.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller went 5.2 IP, allowing five hits and two runs but only one against him was earned in his 10th start at T-Mobile Park (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Miller moderates the damage for solid start
Mariner starting pitcher and right-handed Bryce Miller was able to go over the hopeful five innings that Scott Servais had planned for him but wasn’t able to get the final out to complete six innings. The third inning saw the first run against Miller during his outing, but it wasn’t an earned one as Orioles catcher James McCann grounded to Dylan Moore at shortstop, but Moore’s throw to first baseman Ty France took him off the base to allow McCann to reach. McCann would later score on a single by Anthony Santander. The earned run charged against Miller came from his time on the mound during the second inning, as Bryce did get two outs but not before Ryan Mountcastle singled, as he’d later be driven in by an Austin Hays single after advancing to second on a ground out. All things considered, including the Mariners managing his innings now, it’s another solid outing from Bryce Miller.
Miller’s arsenal saw him deploy five pitches according to baseball savant, which may not necessarily be true because Scott Servais says there’s no difference between a slider and sweeper. Bryce’s pitches saw in uptick in every pitch that he threw, as he deployed his fastball, sinker, sweeper, slider (you can combine those though) and a rare changeup. He saw his spin rate also rise on every pitch except for that changeup, which he only threw three times. Baltimore only hit 21 of his pitches into foul territory, with only five of them being hit hard.
“That team is 1st in the ERA of 30 teams, and they have, for me, like I said, probably the best rotation with some of the best bullpen arms in the game. For us to do the little things extremely, extremely well, just little things matter so much…it’s just team at-bats, team baseball, team defense and our guys are appreciating that and understanding how fun it is to play that way…”
The Seattle Mariners offense had little success against Baltimore Orioles starter Kyle Bradish and their bullpen (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Don’t fall into bad habits
This loss in the rubber match felt a lot like what the Mariners have struggled with this season, which is the offense as a whole, but today's disappointment is a little different than yesterdays. Game two of the series saw Seattle strand runners on base and miss a ton of opportunities with runners in scoring position. During today's game, the Mariners struggled to get traffic on the bases much at all, only leaving five runners on base as they only racked up six hits today, going one for five with runners in scoring position. Seattle simply didn’t do enough at the plate to truly threaten the Orioles outside of the two runs early and then Canzone’s pimp shot in the bottom of the ninth, while they continue to struggle in extra innings and Julio Rodriguez can’t seem to figure out how to keep the line moving in clutch moments this season.
These are problems that the Mariners have dealt with already this year. They must figure out how to get back to taking the opposing starting pitcher out of the game and having a more patient plate approach, and those are two things that JP Crawford helps to do every night that he’s in the lineup. This series should show the sort of value that he brings to this Mariners team, in addition to the fact that he leads the team in WAR and has done so all season. Going back to the patient plate approach, the Mariners faced Orioles (former Athletics) reliever Shintaro Fujinami in the bottom of the tenth inning, and he was hardly in the strike zone. Seattle was unable to take advantage of this and went down in three batters.
Seattle Mariners infielder Josh Rojas scored the first and second runs of the day for his team, coming in the third and fifth innings (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Paul Sewald trade return play's big role in Mariners organization today
It was an interesting today for every player that was involved in the Paul Sewald trade that took place a day before the trade deadline. Down in Arizona with the Diamondbacks, Sewald got the save for his new team as they beat the San Diego Padres. When it comes to the Mariners organization, Ryan Bliss with the Tacoma Rainiers walked it off against the Oklahoma City Dodgers with a base hit. At the big-league level, Josh Rojas and Dominic Canzone played a big role in the Seattle offense and those two alone represented the three runs that the team scored against the Orioles in the loss. Rojas, starting at second base for this game, recorded a single and a double all on the day, being scored by Eugenio Suarez on a single and Julio Rodriguez on a double.
Dominic Canzone’s moment is the biggest of all, and it’s unfortunate that we can’t look at it in a win. Starting in right field, Canzone had reached on an error by former Mariner Adam Frazier in the game, but his big moment came in the bottom of the ninth with his team down by a run. After Ty Trance had what looked like the tying homer but was robbed by Cedric Mullins, Canzone unleashed a tank shot to right field that smacked the windows in right field (former Hit It Here Cafe) for his second career home run and first with Seattle.
Seattle Mariners outfielder Dominic Canzone hit a solo homer to right field to tie this game in the bottom of the ninth inning, his second homer of his career at the Major League level (Photos by Liv Lyons)
The Cedric Mullins game
Orioles center fielder Cedric Mullins didn’t start this ballgame, but he made sure that he finished it off. Coming into the ballgame as a defensive replacement in the bottom of the sixth and flew out in his first plate appearance of the game before really wreaking havoc in the last two innings of this game. The bottom of the ninth saw Mullins rob Ty France of a game-tying solo homer to center field, leaping up to take the ball away, ripping the heart out of Mariners fans for the first time in two innings. The second time he’d do so was in the top of the ninth, slamming a two-run homer to right field to score ghost runner Anthony Santander and give his team the lead back after Seattle was juiced up on Dominic Canzone’s game-tying blast in the bottom of the ninth. Big time players make big time plays, and Cedric Mullins did that today.
“Catch of the year. I saw that replay on the jumbotron…when he came down and pumped his fist I was-, that was an amazing feeling in our dugout. He’s just such a good player and a great defender and then you have a homer…he didn’t start the game but he finished it.”
‘Pen report
Seattle had to empty the bullpen out a bit for this game, but sending out five relievers after Bryce Miller went five and two thirds' innings in this contest. While the Seattle bullpen is typically as strong as any in baseball and they didn’t allow runs in the seventh or eighth, it wasn’t their best game. The ninth was complicated and frustrating, as Andres Munoz was trying to get the hold so that his team could attempt to walk things off in the bottom of the inning. A double and walk but runners on first and second, but Munoz was charged with a balk by third base umpire Adam Beck to push them both up a base. That call, a questionable one, made Mariners manager Scott Servais irate, leading to his ejection and third base coach Manny Acta taking over as acting manager for the game. Pacific Northwest native Adley Rutschman hit into a fielder's choice as Jorge Mateo scored from third as a pinch runner to give Baltimore the lead.
The tenth inning saw Trent Thornton take the mound instead of Tayler Saucedo, to the anger of many, and the move didn’t pay off. The Mullins home run gave the Orioles the dagger, and Thornton allowed a double to former Mariners Adam Frazier before getting the final out of the inning to send things to his offense to try and bail him out, but they couldn’t get it done. There’s plenty of criticism going around about the choices on who came out of the bullpen and on the players that came out themselves, and while more of the blame needs to be directed towards the ineptitude of this offense, some of that blame is fair to go against certain relievers from this game.
Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais was ejected from this game in the top of the ninth by third base umpire Adam Beck (Photos by Liv Lyons)
The road ahead
To close out the second half of the month of August, Seattle is facing a schedule that they plain and simple must take advantage. This upcoming ten game road trip has seven games against the second (Royals) and third (White Sox) worst teams in all of baseball, let alone the American League. They’ll have a tough three game set against the Astros in the middle of that, but the Mariners must take care of business during those other seven games for sure. They’ve climbed the ranks and taken the Angels out in the process, Seattle has an excellent opportunity to thrust their way even higher if all goes according to plan, but I understand things going according to plan doesn’t typically happen with this team. They should be getting JP Crawford back at the end of the Royals series or beginning of the Astros series, which will be a big help to this lineup on and off the diamond. To close out the month of August and after this road trip ends, the Mariners will host that some Royals team and welcome the worst team in all of baseball to town when the Athletics make their way up North. It’s a fortunate stretch, but Seattle has to make sure that it’s a fortunate one and keep the focus on. They just challenged the best team in the American League for three games, after all.
Former Seattle Mariners second baseman Adam Frazier went 1-10 at the plate against his former team and committed an error (Photos by Liv Lyons)
Quick notes
In today’s series finale, the Mariners fell to the Orioles 5-3 and drop the series…it snapped a streak of 6-consecutive series wins. Over their last 37 games (7/1-c), the team holds a 25-12 record which is still the best record in the American League.
Seattle is now 10-3 over its last 13 and 12-4 over its last 16.
In rubber matches, the Mariners are now 7-9
The Mariners had not lost consecutive games since 7/23-7/24 vs. TOR/MIN.
Dominic Canzone hit a game-tying solo home run in the 9th inning to send the Mariners and Orioles into extra innings…it was the Mariners first game-tying, 2 out home run in the 9th inning or later since Mike Ford on 6/24/23 @ BAL.
It was his furthest and hardest hit home run this year (previously: 371’ at 100.6 MPH on 7/20 w/ AZ against ATL).
Canzone has reached base safely in 6 of 8 games with the Mariners this season, hitting safely in 5 of those occasions.
During the series against the Orioles, Julio Rodríguez tallied 6 RBI…it is the most runs he has driven in during a series this year, matching the season high for a Seattle hitter (also: Suárez and Cal Raleigh)
Rodríguez’ career high RBI in a single series is 8, which came against Texas from 7/14/22-7/17/22.
His 26 doubles on the year are tied for 2nd most on the team (also: J.P. Crawford), trialing Ty France’s 27 doubles.
In his 10th start at T-Mobile Park this season, Bryce Miller threw 5.2 innings and allowed 5 hits, 2 runs (1 ER), 2 walks and struck out 2 over 85 pitches.
Mariners starting pitchers have not allowed more than 1 earned run in 7-straight games following Miller’s outing today, tossing 5.0+ innings in each contest.
In 13 of 17 starts this year, Miller has allowed 3-or-fewer runs…it ties for 6th most outings by American League starters aged 25-or-younger (also: Logan Allen-CLE; highest: Kirby, 19).
Miller has not allowed more than 2 walks in 12 of his outings this year, the 4th most such occurrences among AL pitchers 25-or-younger (also: Tanner Bibee-CLE)…George Kirby holds the lead with 17 occasions.
Seattle starting pitchers have recorded 86 starts with 5.0+ innings pitched and 2-or-fewer walks allowed this year, which leads the Major Leagues…the next closest team is Minnesota, with 81 such games.
Eugenio Suárez went 2-for-4 with a pair of singles and 1 RBI today to pick up his 23rd multi-hit game of the year… in August, he has hit safely in 8 of 11 games, with 4 of those being multi-hit occasions.
This month, he is batting .295 (11x44) with 1 double, 1 home run, 8 RBI and 3 walks
Suárez’ single in the 1st inning was the Mariners first hit of the game.
Josh Rojas picked up 1 single, drew his 28th walk of the year and scored the Mariners first 2 runs of the day…it marked his 18th game this season reaching base 2+ times.
Teoscar Hernández picked up 1 single in the 6th inning…in 12 games this month, he has hit safely in 7 and is batting .282 (11x39) with 3 runs, 3 doubles, 1 home run, 1 RBI and 1 walk.
The Mariners bullpen today (Justin Topa, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash, Andrés Muñoz and Trent Thornton) combined for 4.1 innings and allowed 4 hits, 3 runs (2 ER), 2 walks and struck out 5 batters.
Seattle Mariners Hall Of Famer Félix Hernández threw out the ceremonial first pitch before this game, the day after he was inducted as the 11th member. (Photos by Liv Lyons)
What’s next?
Following the series loss and end of their five-game homestand, the Mariners are headed out on a road trip that will last ten games. Seattle, having gained ground with their eight-game win streak, will look to fully insert themselves into a playoff spot with a somewhat fortunate back end schedule in the month of August, including seven games against the Kansas City Royals plus three game sets against the Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics, all teams who have struggled for the majority of this 2023 season. The road trip begins against the Royals tomorrow, Monday August 14th with a first pitch time of 5:10PM PST. Logan Gilbert will kick this road trip off for the Mariners as he’ll duel against Brady Singer.