Rock the ballpark: Luis Castillo rock solid as Mariners take series over Angels
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – After a frustrating series opening loss to the Los Angeles Angels, the Seattle Mariners have bounced back to win two of three, taking the series in a tight 3-2 over their American League West rivals. A strong start from veteran right hander Luis Castillo paved the way for the rubber match victory, as the Seattle offense did just enough to squeak out the win over an Angels team that while depleted, still fought to the very end. The Mariners got contributions at the plate in the right moments from Teoscar Hernandez, Cal Raleigh, and Julio Rodriguez, as Seattle’s stars continue to shine as we approach the postseason. While there still needs to be more from the hitters, the Mariners are slowly getting back to finding ways to win ballgames, which is big as the month of September rolls on.
Seattle Kraken forward Jared McCann threw out the ceremonial first pitch ahead of the Seattle Mariners win over the Los Angeles Angels (Photo by Bryan Saldana)
Luis lets loose against Los Angeles
Mariners starting pitcher, and the rock of this rotation (See what I did there), Luis Castillo was on the mound today as he got the ball in a situation where Seattle needed a win. With how they’d fallen out of a playoff spot in recent weeks due to that poor ten-game road trip and being in danger of dropping a series to an Angels team that had blown up their season, the Mariners ace delivered. Yes, there are notably two runs allowed on his line from this game, but also considering that they came off a solo homer and two singles, it wasn’t bad at all. Luis was able to lock down that lineup that had been up to the task back on Monday, and clearly didn’t want to go away without a fight today.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Luis Castillo delivered six strong innings for his team in the win over the Los Angeles Angels (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Castillo threw six innings today, extending an impressive streak of going five or more innings since becoming a Mariner, throwing 104 pitches today. Of those 104, Luis deployed four pitch types: his fastball, sinker, slider, and changeup to elicit 15 whiffs from Los Angeles on the day. Castillo had that electric fastball of his working today, with ten of those whiffs coming on that pitch. Interestingly enough, more of Luis’ pitches were outside the strike zone (56) than inside (48) it. A good sign, though, was that the Angels only made hard contact on four of the thirteen pitches that they hit into fair territory.
The Seattle Mariners offense mustered only five hits today, but made it count to get the three runs they needed to win the game (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Two-out offense continues to power Seattle
To begin the month of September, the Mariners had heavily struggled at generating base traffic and even when they did put runners on, they couldn’t drive them in, which is what had been huge to their month of August. After a tough first game loss to Los Angeles where the offense had come in bursts, Seattle has been able to cash in with two-outs in what can hopefully be the start of a trend for a team that will need to generate offense as they’ll battle good ballclubs down the stretch. All the Mariners runs came in a three-inning span, between the third and fifth, as Seattle got big knocks from three hitters that have been part of their driving force in this second half of the season. In the third, Josh Rojas was scored by a Julio Rodriguez double to left field, getting Seattle on the board in the third inning. Then in the fifth, down by a run, the Mariners had Ty France and Julio Rodriguez on first and second due to a hit by pitch and intentional walk as Angels manager Phil Nevin decided to put Julio on even with a runner on first. Back-to-back singles from Cal Raleigh and Teoscar Hernandez made Los Angeles pay for that decision, scoring two runs and giving Seattle a lead they’d never lose.
Seattle Mariners relievers Justin Topa and Andres Munoz (we don’t have any Matt Brash photos from today) helped lock down the win (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
‘Pen report
After Castillo’s day was done, Seattle used three of their high leverage relievers out of the bullpen to try and hold on to a narrow advantage. Having gone up by a run back in the fifth, once Luis was done it was Justin Topa who came in to attempt to bounce back from his Monday outing where the Angels took advantage of a mistake against him. A single and walk against him could’ve been trouble, but Topa helped catch Jordyn Adams attempting to steal and otherwise got out of the inning. Matt Brash took the ball next, using his slider heavily to work around a walk and single, striking out three batters to push us to the bottom of the eighth. When the top of the ninth came, in a save opportunity, Andrés Muñoz got the ball and was able to retire the side in order, just in a different way as Cal Raleigh caught Brett Phillips trying to steal second. Muñoz looked back to himself in this outing, though, as his sinker and fastball velocity were back up to where they had been previously after a tough stretch.
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh threw out Los Angeles Angels outfielder Brett Phillips trying to steal second, ending the game and giving the Mariners a series win (Photos by Bryan Saldana)
Back on track
This series win, not just today’s victory, is potentially huge towards the Mariners getting back on track and working towards not only securing a playoff berth but also the possibility of a division title. Earlier this month, we’d looked at how the things that went well in the second half of the season so far for the Mariners in their pitching staff and explosive offense had both turned for the worse. While there’s still a lot of work to be done and the opponents will seemingly only get harder after this series against the Angels, including the immediate series after this against the Dodgers, these steps forward are huge. Seattle needs that confidence boost back in motion to have things back to the flow they were on earlier. I can’t guarantee that the Mariners will be the same sort of team that they were in August, but they’re looking more like the team that pushed themselves to sole possession of the top spot in the AL West. Whether that was the sage in the locker-room from JP Crawford or getting the right breaks to turn things around, the situation is much better than it was on that ten-game road trip.
Quick notes
With their 3-2 win today, the Mariners take the series against the Angels and improve to 81-65 on the season and are now 6-2 in their last 8 rubber games.
Seattle has now clinched its 17th .500-or-better season in franchise history.
The Mariners are now 23-25 in 1-run games this season.
Today’s starting pitcher Luis Castillo went 6.0 innings and allowed 2 runs on 3 hits (1 HR) and 3 walks with 8 strikeouts on 104 pitches, 66 strikes.
He has recorded 5.0+ innings in all 30 of his starts this season, most in MLB…Castillo has gone 6.0+ innings in 21 of his 30 outings, recording 17 quality starts.
Seattle is 9-0 over Castillo’s last 9 starts since July 30.
The Mariners have 3 pitchers with 17+ QS this season (Castillo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby)…no other MLB team even has 3 pitchers with 15+ QS this season.
The Mariners opened their scoring in the 3rd inning after Julio Rodríguez doubled to left field allowing Josh Rojas to score on the play…Rojas has singled earlier in the inning.
Julio now has 99 RBI on the season…with his next RBI he would join Alex Rodriguez-SEA (1998) & Ronald Acuña Jr.-ATL (2019) to become just the 3rd player age 22-or-younger with a 30/30 season and 100 RBI in the same year.
Julio reached base safely again in the 5th inning after being intentionally walked…he became just the third player in MLB this season to be intentionally walked with a runner on 1st (also: Aaron Judge-NYY, Brent Rooker-OAK).
The Mariners added another run in the 5th inning after Cal Raleigh singled to right field scoring Ty France on the play…this was Raleigh’s 69th of the season which extends his career high.
Raleigh has also set career highs in home runs (28) and walks (50) this season.
The scoring continued in the 5th inning with a Teoscar Hernández single that scored Julio Rodríguez.
With this single Hernández extended his on-base streak to 28 games which is Seattle’s longest on-base streak since Robinson Canó's 34-game on-base streak from April 30-June 5, 2016.
Ty France reached base safely in his 3rd straight game after getting hit by a pitch in the 5th inning…this was his league-leading 31st hit-by-pitch this season.
Seattle relievers Justin Topa, Matt Brash and Andrés Muñoz combined for 3.0 scoreless innings.
Brash is the 5th Mariners reliever with 100+ strikeouts in a season, joining Bill Caudill (1982), J.J. Putz (2006), Edwin Díaz (2018) & Paul Sewald (2021).
Muñoz tallied his 13th save of the season with his scoreless 9th.
What’s next?
Following the series win over the Angels, wrapping up their season series against their division rivals, Seattle will get their first day off in 13 days as the ten-game road trip ran right into the beginning of this home stand. The Mariners will continue their second to lats homestand when it picks back up on Friday, September 15th when they host the other (real, actually as the other team plays in Anaheim) Los Angeles team as the Dodgers come to town. Seattle aims to pull off a massive upset, battling the second-best team in the National League while also trying to climb higher in their battle for the American League West title. Despite those two factors that ideally create a grand matchup, all three of these games haven’t been put on national television and will be broadcast on Root sports. The Mariners will have George Kirby on the mound trying to snap a four-game (including a missed start due to illness) stretch that’s far under his standards, battling against young Dodgers starter Bobby Miller. First pitch time for that game is 7:10PM PST.
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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