Mariners weren’t no-hit, but as offense spirals, so does their playoff hopes

James Paxton allowed a leadoff home run in the fifth inning, the ace’s pitch count approached 80, the Athletics were winning, again, the Astros were rolling, again, and, oh, the Seattle Mariners’ offense was without a hit into the seventh inning.

No, for the Mariners this was not as fun as the last time Paxton pitched against the Toronto Blue Jays, when he tossed the organization’s sixth career no-hitter.

This is one of those that seemed every bit as bad as it looked.

Another Blue Jays pitcher to shut down the Mariners’ offense, only this time it was 35-year-old right hander Marco Estrada instead of rookie lefty Ryan Borucki or signed-30-minutes-before-the-game Mike Hauschild.

Estrada didn’t allow a hit against this grasping-for-straws Mariners offense until Mitch Haniger’s double with one out in the seventh, and the Blue Jays left with a 5-1 victory to hand Seattle its fifth consecutive loss.

So the slide continues for the Mariners (63-48) who fell to 2.5 games back of the Athletics for the final wild card and are 7.5 back of the Astros in the American League West.

“It’s tough,” Paxton said. “We’re definitely in a rough stretch right now.

“But we’re confident we’re going to turn it around. We’re a good team here, and we’re just going through a rough patch. But things will turn around. We’ll get hot and make a run for it here.”

Remember when the Mariners were eight games ahead of the Athletics on July 1?

Since then they’ve gone 10-17. The A’s have won 33 of their past 43 games. The Mariners offense has scored three runs or fewer in six consecutive games and were averaging 3.3 runs since July 1 … after averaging 4.4 runs when they were 53-31 by the end of June.

Throw all of that out the window now.

Now the Mariners are just hoping to avoid a four-game sweep at the hands of the 51-59 Blue Jays.

The last time Estrada threw seven shutout innings was last September against the Red Sox. And this came one night after the 24-year-old Borucki allowed one earned run in eight innings and Hauschild pitched six scoreless innings of relief in the past two Toronto wins.

Paxton can’t throw no-hitters every time out. At some point, this offense has to find a spark. They had three hits in this one.

“We keep playing the same record over and over,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.

“Some guys are maybe too anxious, other guys a little bit too passive. You just got to go hit it. Simplify it. I often tell players in this spot you got to go back to what you did in Little League and high school. You didn’t have video, you didn’t over-analyze anything – you just walked up there and said, ‘I’m going to see a good pitch and I’m going to hit it.’

“Because it’s still a game. Sometimes we make it harder than it is.”

And for those wondering if the answer is in Triple-A, with recently optioned outfielder Ben Gamel going 4-for-5 with two doubles for the Rainiers on Saturday night – the same night the Mariners tallied three total hits – Gamel can’t be recalled until spending 10 days in the minor leagues unless he’s replacing a player added to the disabled list off the 25-man roster. He was optioned Wednesday.

It was scoreless until the third inning, when Kevin Pillar doubled, reached third on Randal Grichuk’s single and scored on Devon Travis’ two-run single to center.

That was Travis’ seventh RBI in the past three games against the Mariners, and, keep in mind, the Mariners had scored a total of five runs in this series to that point.

Paxton struggled finding command of his secondary pitches, with his pitch count soaring to 63 by the time he got through the third inning – and it would have been worse had he not received an inning-ending double play behind him.

Through the first five innings, Paxton escaped with three inning-ending double plays.

That helped him find a way to get through seven innings despite that rising pitch count.

“I was getting into some deep counts,” Paxton said. “I just had to get in the zone early, get some early contact and the double plays really helped.”

But the Blue Jays tacked on another run in the top of the fifth when Aledmys Diaz sent Paxton’s curveball over the left-field wall for a solo home run, traveling 395 feet.

Nelson Cruz sent a charge 399 feet out to center field for an out the inning before for the Mariners, so there is that.

Two innings later, the Mariners had their first hit when Haniger lined a double down the third-base line off Estrada,

The Mariners avoided the shutout when Ryon Healy drew a leadoff walk in the eighth inning, went to third on Cameron Maybin’s single and scored on Chris Herrmann’s sacrifice fly. But that was it.

And with Dee Gordon resting a sore ankle that led to an interesting defense in the ninth inning. Herrmann, who pinch-hit for Andrew Romine, who was playing second base, went to first base, Ryon Healy moved from first to third base and that left Kyle Seager playing second base – for the first time since 2012.

Seager’s last game at second base was a Sept. 22, 2012, game against the Rangers when Alex Liddi was at third and Justin Smoak was the Mariners’ first baseman, not the Blue Jays’. Some other players in that lineup – Casper Wells in right field, Michael Saunders in left, Franklin Gutierrez in center, Jesus Montero at catcher, Luis Jimenez DH and Brendan Ryan at shortstop. None were batting over Montero’s .261.

So it’s possible to have a worse offense than this 2018 one of late..

A few takeaways:

Offense?

The Mariners have scored six runs in the first three games of this series, with reliever Tyler Clippard starting the first game, rookie Ryan Bolucki in Friday’s game and 35-year-old Marco Estrada (with a 4.90 ERA) on Saturday.

The Mariners have averaged 3.3 runs per game since July 1, and this is going to get ugly if they don’t find some offense. They entered Saturday ranked 11th out of 15 American League teams in runs scored this season.

Since the second wild card playoff spot was added in 2012, no team has made the playoffs ranking 10th or lower in the American League in runs scored.

“Ultimately in the batter’s box you got to compete,” Servais said. “How do I hit it? It’s coming at me some nights at 95, others it’s 85, some nights it’s 75. I got to hit it. You got to try to simplify things a little bit. That’s what we need to get to, instead of making it harder, make it simpler because what we’ve been doing so far hasn’t been working.”

Robinson Cano?

So when do they get him back?

He arrived in Seattle on Friday and is now less than 10 days from his Aug. 14 return date from an 80-game suspension for violating major league baseball’s joint drug agreement.

Cano can begin a rehab assignment with any of the Mariners’ minor league affiliates as of this past Wednesday.

The Mariners were averaging 4.6 runs per game in the first 40 games of the season with Cano in the lineup.

Paxton’s 7

James Paxton did not have his best stuff this night, particularly his curveball and cutter.

But he did battle his way despite a rising pitch count to get through seven innings with seven strikeouts. He exited after 105 pitches thanks to four double plays from the defense behind him.

Solid night, even if it wasn’t a no-hitter like the last time he faced Toronto.

“It was a different team this time around and I just didn’t have very good stuff,” Paxton said. “Breaking stuff wasn’t very good, location wasn’t very good. I really had to grind. I didn’t have as good of stuff as the last time I faced them.”

But the bullpen hasn’t helped the Mariners out – their relievers have allowed 10 runs (seven earned) over the first three games of this series. James Pazos and Sam Tuivailala each allowed one in this one.

Play of the game

The Mariners finally had their first hit of the game and with Marco Estrada on his way out after seven innings, maybe there was some Mariners life, trailing 3-0.

Except Kevin Pillard led off with a single against Sam Tuivailala and Justin Smoak scored him on a two-out single to make it 4-0, Blue Jays, in the eighth inning.

The Mariners didn’t score until Chris Herrmann’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly to score Ryon Healy in the bottom of the eighth.

Top pitcher

Marco Estrada hadn’t pitched seven shutout innings since last September against Boston. He entered with a 4.90 ERA but didn’t allow a hit until Mitch Haniger’s one-out double in the seventh inning.

Coincidentally enough, it came after James Paxton threw his first career no-hitter against the Blue Jays in the Mariners May 8 victory in Toronto.

Paxton in this one threw seven innings, allowed eight hits and three runs with seven strikeouts.

Top batter

One night after Randal Grichuk had four hits, he went 2-for-4 with a run for the Blue Jays. But the bigger Mariner-killer has been Devon Travis, who went 2-for-3 with two RBI. He has seven RBI in three games in Seattle this series.

For the Mariners, Nelson Cruz had the best at-bats, hitting a 399-foot fly out and still going 1-for-3. He also drew a walk. Mitch Haniger lined a double for the Mariners’ first hit with one out in the seventh inning and he shows signs of escaping his slump.

Cameron Maybin had the other hit for the Mariners.

Quotable

Scott Servais on Marco Estrada:

“We know what he has, he just kept us off balance all night,” Servais said. “It’s been a struggle. It’s been a struggle offensively and we have to find a way to put some more pressure on the other team. We just haven’t done a good job of it here and that’s obviously why we’re lost the past five.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2018 at 9:47 PM.