Swept in Seattle: Mariners reeling after three straight losses to Dodgers
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Following back-to-back tough losses to a Los Angeles Dodgers team that had just clinched their tenth National League West title in the past eleven seasons, the Seattle Mariners looked to be in good position to avoid being swept. With one of their best pitchers on the mound in Logan Gilbert and the Dodgers rolling out their “hangover” lineup after celebrating their division title, everything pointed towards Seattle getting the win in bounce back fashion. The exact opposite happened, as the Los Angeles second team hammered Gilbert and the Mariners offense failed to do much of anything against the Dodgers, only plating one run in a frustrating and boo worthy loss. With thirteen games remaining in the regular season, the clock is ticking on Seattle’s playoff hopes.
Prior tot he game, the Seattle Mariners celebrated Hispanic Heritage Day, as the Los Angeles Dodgers joined them as well as both teams held their native flags (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Gilbert gets hammered in rough outing
As mentioned previously, the Mariners had one of their best starting pitchers on the mound in their third-year pitcher Logan Gilbert. Gilbert hadn’t lost a start in over a month, and he’d be facing off against essentially a team of the Dodgers bench players. After striking out former Mariner Chris Taylor, it looked as though he was going to steam roll his way to another victory, but the tone of the game took a drastic turn when Jason Heyward hit a solo homer just barely over the wall in right field to get Los Angeles on the board. The second inning didn’t fare much better, as a triple by Amed Rosario was followed by a single from Kolten Wong, before Wong was scored on an Austin Barnes homer. After those four runs, the Dodgers got one more across to plate five of their six runs in this game against Gilbert.
Looking at the pitches that Los Angeles hit against Logan, none of them were particularly bad pitches, the Dodgers just managed to get good wood on them. Of the 86 total pitches that he threw against Los Angeles, Logan is tasked with deploying five pitch types: fastball, slider, splitter, knuckle-curve, and one singular sinker. Gilbert saw increases in velocity in his fast ball and sinker, while spin rates were down on every pitch except for his sinker. Of the 17 pitches that the Dodgers put into fair territory against Los Angeles, nine of them were hit hard, which is a bad sign. Logan generated 12 whiffs on the day, with seven of them coming on slider.
The Los Angeles Dodgers jumped all over Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Logan Gilbert (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Mariners runners dodge any hope of being scored
Despite what some may say, the Mariners primary issue this series against Los Angeles was failure to take advantage of the runners that they put on base against the Dodgers pitching staff. One of the best staffs from top to bottom in all of MLB, Seattle was still able to create numerous opportunities to put runs across, and that was a positive sign that the Mariners had the ability to be in these fights. Today’s start to the game showed some possibility of that, as J.P. Crawford doubled to lead off the bottom of the first inning. He was stranded, as the next three batters went down in order. The second inning saw the Mariners score their only run as Eugenio Suarez walked and back-to-back singles by Mike Ford and Ty France helped to load the bases for JP Crawford, scoring Suarez as Crawford singled. From there? It was little to nothing.
Following that run in the second inning, Seattle only got a runner on second base two times, as Mike Ford reached as he was moved over by a Ty France singled after he had walked, and Julio Rodriguez reached on a fielder's choice before a walk by Cal Raleigh pushed him over. The energy in the ballpark, despite the sellout crowd, was at a low that we hadn’t seen since perhaps the disappointing months of May and June, as the Mariners offense continued to disappoint and largely look like the sort of disappointing effort at the plate that we’d seen in the first half of the season. It’s discouraging to see, as Seattle must kick into high gear to secure a playoff spot that almost seemed guaranteed at the end of the month of August.
The Seattle Mariners offense scored only one run as the Los Angeles Dodgers rolled out a bullpen day (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
It’s panic time
Considering the traffic that the Mariners generated in the first two games of this series, there was some hope that they were on the cusp of playing better and just needed a push to start clicking. Today’s effort wiped any of that sort of confidence away and threw it in the garbage. Despite a sellout crowd of 45,477 in attendance at T-Mobile Park for this series finale, the Mariners lack of any real offensive cohesion or effort made the atmosphere feel completely dead and soulless. After this series, Seattle might need to sage the entire ballpark and surrounding Sodo area, because there are still clear issues present as the Mariners look to secure a playoff spot. The playoff window, once something that Seattle was seemingly penciled into, is shrinking for the Mariners by the day as the Blue Jays are turning things around and the Astros avoided a sweep with their win over the Royals today. As mentioned previously during this homestand, Seattle is no longer in the driver's seat when it comes to their postseason destiny. They need help, in addition to having to do their own job, and they certainly aren’t doing the latter as of late.
Quick notes
The Mariners dropped today’s series finale to the Dodgers by a 6-1 score…they wrapped up the 6-game homestand at 2-4.
In series sweeps this season, Seattle is now 7-3.
In T-Mobile Park sellouts (6), they are now 2-4.
J.P. Crawford went 2-for-4 with 1 double, 1 RBI and 1 walk in today’s series finale.
Crawford led off Mariners hitters today with a double, his 28th leadoff hit and 10th leadoff double of the year…Crawford’s 28 leadoff hits rank T-9th most among all Major League hitters (also: Marcus Semien-TEX).
He drove in the Mariners first run of the game on a 2-out single in the 2nd inning to score Eugenio Suárez from third…it marked his 25th 2-out RBI overall and 14th 2-out RBI with the bases loaded this year …his 14 bases loaded 2-out RBIs tie for 2nd most among all Major League batters (also: Freddie Freeman-LAD and Josh Lowe-TB), trailing only Adolis Garcia-TEX with 15.
Crawford is hitting .692 (9x13) with the bases loaded this season.
Crawford reached base 3+ times tonight for the 25th time this season…he trails only Ty France’s 26 such games for the most by a Mariners hitter this season.
Ty France singled in the 2nd and 6th innings to pick up his 38th multi-hit game of the year….he has reached base safely (via H, BB or HBP) in the last 6-consecutive games (9/11-c), hitting safely in 5 of those games and recording multiple hits in 3 of those.
Over France’s 6-game on-base streak, he is batting .381 (8x21) with 1 RBI and 2 HBP and is reaching base at a .435 clip.
During this series against the Dodgers, France went 5-for-11 with 1 HBP.
Mike Ford went 2-for-3 with a pair of singles and 1 walk in today’s game…it marked his career-high 11th multi-hit game this year.
Ford reached base safely tonight 3 times for the 8th time this season, also extending a career-high.
Cal Raleigh picked up 1 single and drew his 52nd walk of the season today…he has hit safely in 5 of the last 7 games (9/10-c).
Eugenio Suárez drew his 64th walk of the season in the 2nd inning and went on to score the Mariners first run of the game.
In his 29th start of the season, Logan Gilbert threw 5.0 innings and allowed 7 hits, 5 runs (5 ER), 1 walk, 2 home runs and struck out 6 over 86 pitches.
Today marked Gilbert’s 20th game with 5.0+ innings pitched and 1-or-fewer walks allowed…Gilbert is tied with Zach Eflin-TB for the 2nd most such games in the Majors this season, trailing only Logan Webb-SF with 22 occurrences.
Seattle starters have a Major League leading 81 games this season with 5.0+ innings pitched and 1-or-fewer starts allowed…the next closest team, Minnesota, has 74 such games.
The Mariners bullpen today (Eduard Bazardo and Dominic Leone) combined for 4.0 innings and allowed 3 hits, 1 run (1 ER), 1 home run and struck out 1.
Teoscar Hernández ended a career-high 30-game on-base streak (8/15-c) today, which was the longest active on-base streak (via H, BB or HBP) in the Majors…Hernández’ streak is the longest on-base streak by a Seattle hitter this season (previously: Rodríguez – 27 G, 7/1-8/2) and the longest since Robinson Canó’s 34-game on-base streak from 4/30-6/5/16).
What’s next?
Following this series as they were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers and a six-game homestand that saw them tally a dismal record of 2-4, the Seattle Mariners will head out on a six games in seven days road trip facing two divisional rivals. First, the Mariners will go back to Cali for a three-game set against the Oakland Athletics in which they’ll likely need a sweep to jump back into the playoff picture, before they head down to Texas for a series that begins a massive end of the season stretch where Seattle plays the Rangers seven times in the last ten games. The road trip begins tomorrow, Monday, September 17th in Oakland with a 6:40PM PST first pitch against the Athletics. The Mariners will have rookie right hander Bryan Woo on the mound, looking to replicate the excellent outing his last time out against the Angles this homestand, as he’ll duel against Athletics starter JP Sears.
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Check out our previous Seattle Mariners articles here
Check out our previous articles with photos by Bryan Saldana here
Check out our previous articles with writing by Charles Hamaker here