Mariners hold players-only meeting after bats stay frigid in fourth consecutive loss
The low point for the Seattle Mariners of another rough day occurred in the ninth inning.
A mostly Toronto Blue Jays crowd of 30,715 at Safeco Field continually chanted “Let’s go Blue Jays” as they tacked on three more runs to their lead. That was one frame after Jays’ 24-year-old rookie lefty Ryan Borucki received a standing ovation as he walked off from a 1-2-3 eighth inning against the spiraling Seattle Mariners offense.
Again, this is at Safeco Field. Seattle, not Canada.
By the end, the majority of fans were applauding another Blue Jays victory, 7-2, over the Mariners as Seattle left with its fourth consecutive loss.
The environment is why Mariners starter Marco Gonzales looked much more aggressive in this start even compared to his past 21 this season.
“After last night (a 7-3 Blue Jays win with a packed Blue Jays fanbase in house), I take that personally,” Gonzales said. “I take that personally when a team comes in here and brings their faithful fans and their muddy shoes and stomps on our carpet and took a dump on our dining room table. I take that personal. I tried to let that be known tonight.”
The Mariners’ clubhouse was empty of players for a few minutes following the game. Then most all walked in after a players-only meeting transpired.
The message?
“Just stick together,” Mariners outfielder Mitch Haniger said. “Keep battling. Put this behind us and focus on winning tomorrow, and just get better every day.”
It was a meeting clearly held out of a growing frustration with the Mariners (63-47) falling to 10-16 since July 1.
“We’re a tight-knit group,” Gonzales said. “And the only conversation is that we’re going to say together through this. This is a long season – 162 games – and it’s not lost in any one series or game. But the way we’re going to get this done is to stay together and play together and play like the team we were in the first part of the season – playing to prove people wrong.”
But as Gonzales experienced, the margin of error for Mariners pitching has slimmed to razor thin.
For the second consecutive start the Mariners turned to the 26-year-old lefty to get them back on the right track, and then he pitched seven innings for just the fifth time this season.
He made really two mistakes all game in what was one of his better outings, stuff-wise, Mariners manager Scott Servais said, over the past month. But the Blue Jays made him pay with home runs on both of them.
Meanwhile, the Mariners offense made Borucki look like Chris Sale, one night after making signed-that-day right-hander Mike Hauschild look like Justin Verlander.
The Mariners scored one unearned run off of Borucki in eight innings.
The Mariners bats had been hanging out in cold storage over the past month-plus, but they found their way to get to arctic temperature in this one.
Their one run came gifted. Haniger took second base when a routine ground ball to shortstop Aledmys Diaz ended up sailing over first baseman Justin Smoak’s head.
Kyle Seager followed with his second hit, driving Haniger in with an RBI single to cut the Jays’ lead to 2-1 in the fourth.
But then the back-breaking two-run homer from Devon Travis off of Gonzales in the fifth before the Jays busted three more runs off of Chasen Bradford in the ninth, hours after Bradford was told to pack his stuff out of the clubhouse in Triple-A Tacoma to rejoin the Mariners after Juan Nicasio headed to the disabled list.
“It’s just been the same ol’ tune here offensively,” Servais said. “It will turn. I know it will and our guys know it will, but it is really frustrating right now. Everybody is grinding away and trying to figure out a way to grind out of this thing.
“It will turn. I feel very confident about that.”
But this one didn’t start or end so optimally for the Mariners.
Two batters, one run. Randall Grichuk led off the game with a double down the first-base line off Gonzales and the next hitter, Devon Travis, brought him home with a single to left field.
Gonzales locked in with six strikeouts over the first three innings and then another to lead off the fourth. But he left a pair of cutters over the middle of the plate to Russell Martin, who hit the second over the left-field wall for a solo home run.
He should have sent Martin back to the dugout with a called strike three the pitch before, but umpire Mike Muchlinski called it ball three instead of what appeared to be strike three.
The next inning, Travis launched a two-run homer off Gonzales – just the third time in 22 starts Gonzales has allowed two or more home runs (also April 3 against the Giants and June 19 against the Yankees).
Meanwhile the Mariners offense kept doing what the Mariners offense has done over the past month-plus.
They had two hits through the first four innings, both from Kyle Seager, who drove in the only run with a single in the fourth to score Mitch Haniger from second base. Haniger only got there because Jays shortstop Aledmys Diaz gifted it to him with a high throw to first on a routine grounder.
The Mariners doubled their hit total off of Borucki, who was looking for his first career win, in the fifth when Jean Segura and Haniger hit back-to-back singles. But Nelson Cruz hit a soft fly out to first and Seager hit a hard line drive right at Gulchuk, the right-fielder.
“We get a couple of guys on and then we hit a bullet right at the right fielder,” Servais said. “That’s what happens when you’re in one of these ruts.”
The Mariners entered the game averaging 3.3 runs offensively since July 1, the lowest mark in the major leagues. And their pitching staff entered with a 4.70 ERA since July 4 – a span the Mariners have gone 8-16 in to fall behind the Oakland Athletics in the American League West.
“Every player on every team I’ve ever been on goes through these things,” Servais said. “You hope the dry spell is a very short dry spell. This one has lasted a little bit longer. But it will turn. It really will.”
They certainly need it to.
A few takeaways:
Players meeting
The Mariners’ clubhouse was empty of players for a few minutes until a flood of them walked in following a players-only meeting.
This stretch of games, really starting since near the beginning of July, have tested the Mariners’ mental fortitude in ways maybe no other stretch has – they now trail the Oakland Athletics for the American League’s final wild card spot after coasting with that spot for so long.
“There’s frustration in not scoring runs,” Gonzales said. “But I think we’re an at-bat or two away from opening the flood gates and this is a group that’s champing at the bit to get that going. I know that they have faith in themselves and the pitching staff has faith in this offense and what they can do. And we got to get things going on the mound, too.”
The Mariners have been held to three runs or fewer in five consecutive games.
“We just got to keep trying to have good at-bats,” Haniger said. “Swinging at good pitches to hit and hit the ball hard. Some things just haven’t gone our way. There’s been lineouts here and there and those can change. But as a unit, as a whole, we need to have good at-bats and keep grinding and things will happen.”
Left vs. Left
The Jays started a 24-year-old rookie lefty, the Mariners their 26-year-old lefty.
But after the Mariners didn’t score a run against that-day-acquired right-hander Mike Hauschild, they scored one in seven innings against the lefty Ryan Borucki, who was looking for his first major league victory.
To Borucki’s credit, of the 2012 15th-round draft pick’s seven starts this year he’s allowed two runs or fewer in all but one of them (a three-inning outing against the Red Sox).
Gonzales looked sharp for most of this before sitting a cutter down the middle of the plate to Russell Martin in the fourth inning, though he should have had strike three the pitch before that was called ball three.
Gonzales lasted seven innings for the fifth time this season (and fifth time in his career). But the Jays hit two homers off of him, including a two-run shot in the fifth. That’s the third time this year in 22 starts he’s allowed two home runs or more.
He allowed seven hits, four runs, no walks with seven strikeouts.
Innings threshold
Gonzales’s seven innings pushed his season innings total to 132 2/3 innings.
His career-high for innings is 126 1/3 he threw last season, one year after sitting 2016 with Tommy John surgery.
But this wasn’t a strenuous seven innings. He needed just 83 pitches. That’s something the Mariners are monitoring as they play out these final two months of the regular season. Gonzales’ season ERA is 3.46.
Play of the game
The Blue Jays were clinging to a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning when Devon Travis launched a two-run home run off of Marco Gonzales.
With the way this Mariners’ offense has struggled, that was the back-breaker.
Top batter
Kyle Seager had the one hot bat in the Mariners offense.
He finished 2-for-4 with a single and a double and had a hard line drive with two on in the sixth inning that went right at right fielder Randal Grichuk for the out.
Grichuk went 4-for-5 at the plate and score two runs, including the first after he hit a soft grounder down the first base line for a double.
Top pitcher
Jays 24-year-old rookie Ryan Borucki earned his first major league win of his career, pitching eight innings and only allowing an unearned run and four hits with two strikeouts.
Marco Gonzales had some of his best stuff of the past month, and he needed just 83 pitches to get through seven innings. He allowed four runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts.
Quotable
Gonzales’ quote on the Blue Jays faithful taking over Safeco Field:
“After last night, I take that personally,” Gonzales said. “I take that personally when a team comes in here and brings their faithful fans and their muddy shoes and stomps on our carpet and took a dump on our dining room table. I take that personal. I tried to let that be known tonight.”
Also, the Mariners lived off of late rallies in the first half of the season. Not so much since the calendar turned to July.
“You need that big hit,” Servais said. “You need to have a good at-bat. I thought Kyle (Seager) swung the bat much better tonight, which was great to see. He had a good at-bat and hits a ball right at their right fielder. If that falls, it’s a double and you get two runs. You can play the game in your mind in so many different ways – but it’s baseball and you got to be strong enough mentally to ride it out and know that it will turn.”
TJ Cotterill: 253-597-8677; Twitter: @TJCotterill
This story was originally published August 3, 2018 at 9:33 PM.