Balk-off. Mariners avoid meltdown with walk-off balk, stun Dodgers in extra-innings
The stage set, lead in hand, the eighth inning had arrived. This had been about as winning-formula as it’s been for the Seattle Mariners recently – the game was in the right-handed arms of dominant duo Alex Colome and Edwin Diaz to lock up a much-needed Seattle win.
For once, they didn’t.
Diaz had converted his previous 28 saves. He was looking for No. 100 for his career and was 47-for-50 in save opportunities overall this season.
But when Max Muncy jumped on a full-count, 98-mph fastball, Diaz could only stare and turn his head in disbelief as it sailed over the right-field wall for home run No. 28 for the former Athletics castoff.
Tie game.
But those clutch, clutch Mariners.
How about a balk-off?
Yes, a walk-off balk when Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Dylan Floro failed to set his feet with the bases loaded and Kyle Seager at the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning. That scored Cameron Maybin from third base and the Mariners avoided potential disaster with a 5-4 victory on Saturday night at Safeco Field.
“We caught a break,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “We’ll take it.”
Nelson Cruz was about jumping out of his cleats at first base when he noticed it after drawing walk to load the bases for Kyle Seager. Maybin and Justin Turner seemed to distract Floro just enough that tye pitcher’s knees appeared to buckle before he stepped off the rubber and was called for the balk to move all the runners up.
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Ball game.
The Mariners (71-53) now trail the Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics by 3.5 games in the American League West after the A’s beat the Astros for the second consecutive day to tie the reigning World Series champions atop the division.
Cruz was screaming for the balk call at first base, but that is apparently customary.
“That’s Nellie’s thing,” Servais said. “He’ll yell it on the base, in the dugout, in the batter’s box – any time the pitcher does anything that looks a little bit different he starts screaming balk. And he called it tonight. We’ll give him credit for that.”
Cruz gladly accepted.
“The one time it works,” Cruz smiled. “And it came at a good time.”
Seager said Cruz’s leaping was the first thing he noticed. Not the balk.
“I didn’t necessarily know what was going on,” said Seager, who hit a three-run home run earlier in the game. “Something seemed off and then I hear Nellie jumping and screaming and he was so excited. It was awesome.
“It’s hard to find him more happy than him screaming balk and him actually getting a balk.”
The Mariners improved to 12-1 in extra-innings games and are 61-0 when leading after eight innings.
What a game.
“There was obviously no intent. I thought he stepped off in time,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I looked back at the replay and there was a little bit of a buckle of the knee. But that’s the way (umpire Andy Fletcher) saw it and as the rule states, he gave up a run.”
The Mariners had a 4-1 lead entering the eighth inning when they handed the ball to Colome, who hadn’t allowed a run in his past 20 2/3 innings pitched until Justin Turner led off with a solo homer and Cody Bellinger destroyed a 436-foot blast two batters later.
One night earlier the Dodgers, who lead the National League in home runs, hit five of them in an 11-1 Mariners loss. Now they had handed Diaz his first blown save since June 1 against the Rays.
But Diaz limited the damage to the one dinger and struck out Yasiel Puig and Joc Pederson to keep the game going.
Seattle built its three-run lead on a foundation of Seager’s three-run home run, Seager and Maybin’s defense and an outing that wasn’t pretty, but effective from right-hander Erasmo Ramirez, who exited after five innings having allowed one run and three hits with four walks.
In the fifth inning, Seager snapped to his right, snared a 113-mph bouncing line drive off the bat of Manny Machado, spun off of the dirt and fired to first base for an out that left Ryon Healy’s brow furrowed after catching it.
Ramirez then used three pitches to strike out Bellinger and there went the most feared batters against a team that last year was playing in the World Series to end a 1-2-3 frame.
What a sequence.
The improbability of something like that, though, for the Mariners was at Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-will-be-at-a-Mariners-game level after what transpired in the first two innings: Seager’s miscue at third base led to a run, Ramirez walked two batters and threw 31 pitches in the first inning and loaded the bases in the second.
Seager made up for his first-inning misplay with his 20th home run of the season, but also a basket catch into left field to end the fourth inning that had Ramirez raising his hands above his head and smiling in approval, and his spin-cycle work in the fifth.
“If I make that play (in the first inning) a little cleaner we wouldn’t have had to play extra innings,” Seager said. “I pride myself on defense and those things really bother me.”
Cameron Maybin, though, made the defensive play of the game on a diving catch Machado’s line drive to left field to strand the bases loaded in the second.
The Mariners had three of their four hits off of Dodgers’ veteran lefty Rich Hill in the first inning, including back-to-back singles from Robinson Cano and Cruz to score Mitch Haniger.
Seager then jumped on a high fastball for his sixth home run off of a lefty pitcher this season, which is tied for second-most in the majors among left-handed batters this season.
But all those plays and it came down to a balk.
“You need some things to go your way, but you also got to keep fighting and battling and scrapping and clawing,” Servais said.
A few takeaways:
Colome/Diaz duo
The Mariners’ ace card has been an eighth-inning lead – because that means Alex Colome and Edwin Diaz time.
Not this night.
Colome hadn’t allowed a run since June 20 against the Yankees. Diaz hadn’t blown a save since June 1 against the Rays.
Yet, the Dodgers combined for three home runs off of them in the eighth and ninth innings, with Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger taking Colome deep and Max Muncy rocking Diaz’s 98-mph fastball for the game-tying home run in the ninth inning.
Diaz was looking to become the third Mariners pitcher with 100 career saves, joining Kazuhiro Sasaski (129) and J.J. Putz (101). He leads the major leagues with 47 saves, having saved 47-of-50 games entering this one.
Colome did escape with three strikeouts in the eighth and Diaz struck out the final two batters after Muncy’s homer.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Simply Seager. Simply crushed. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TrueToTheBlue?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TrueToTheBlue</a> <a href="https://t.co/lJdPSTNtXH">pic.twitter.com/lJdPSTNtXH</a></p>— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mariners/status/1031021142817927169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Simply Seager
Kyle Seager’s .225 batting average entering Saturday was the lowest of his career, even lower than the .249 average he had last season (his previous low).
But then he has games like this one that can remind of how valuable he is when he hit his 20th home run of the season (his seventh consecutive season with at least 20 home runs and supplied some Gold Glove-worthy defense after a misplay on a potential double-play ball in the first inning (in which he still got Justin Turner out at first base).
Seager has hit 59 home runs against left-handed pitchers since 2012, which is the most in the majors over that span, yanking this one over the right-field seats.
It was also his 1,100th career hit and he’s the sixth player in Mariners history to have that many with the team, joining Ichiro (2,542), Edgar Martinez (2,247), Ken Griffey Jr. (1,843), Jay Buhner (1,255) and Alvin Davis (1,163).
Defense does it
Maybe no play was bigger than Cameron Maybin’s in the second inning.
With the bases loaded after Erasmo Ramirez hit Justin Turner with a pitch, Manny Machado hit a hard line drive into left field that Maybin tracked to his left dived and caught to keep the Mariners’ lead at 4-1.
That was followed by a basket catch Kyle Seager made running into left field to end the fourth and then his spinning play at third base to snare a 113-mph bouncing ground ball in the fifth.
Erasmo Ramirez needed all of it after a rough beginning to this game. He exited after the fifth inning, though, having allowed one run and three hits with four walks.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Great catch from <a href="https://twitter.com/Mariners?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Mariners</a> Cameron Maybin. Catch the finish on <a href="https://twitter.com/ROOTSPORTS_NW?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ROOTSPORTS_NW</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ROOTFANFAV?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ROOTFANFAV</a> <a href="https://t.co/3rjD5NCTsN">pic.twitter.com/3rjD5NCTsN</a></p>— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) <a href="https://twitter.com/ROOTSPORTS_NW/status/1031027905210601473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 19, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Play of the game
Mitch Haniger led off the bottom of the 10th with a single and was replaced at first by Cameron Maybin who blazed down the first-base line to just barely beat out a potential double-play ball on a grounder to second base.
Robinson Cano followed with a hustling infield single (his second of the game) before Nelson Cruz walked to load the bases for Kyle Seager.
It wasn’t much, but Dodgers reliever Dylan Floro’s knees buckled just enough as he was distracted by Maybin and Justin Turner at third base for umpire Andy Fletcher to call balk from first base.
“I thought he moved his hands first and then he stepped off,” Servais said. “Cam is over there and Turner jostling back and forth, and maybe (Floro) saw that out of the corner of his eyes. But he moved his hands first and then stepped off. I thought it was pretty clearly a balk.”
Top pitcher
Against the Astros and Dodgers in his past two starts since coming off the disabled list, Erasmo Ramirez has allowed one run and seven hits in 10 innings pitched.
In this one, Ramirez threw 31 pitches in the first inning and gave up a run on Cody Bellinger’s RBI single after Kyle Seager didn’t convert a potential double-play ball. And then he escaped bases loaded in the second inning when Cameron Maybin dived to catch Manny Machado’s line drive for the final out.
But Nick Vincent and Zach Duke also tossed scoreless innings in relief for the Mariners to get it to the eighth inning.
Dodgers starter Rich Hill allowed three of his four hits in the first inning and all four of the Mariners runs in that first frame. He lasted six innings, walked five batters and struck out eight.
Top batter
Kyle Seager went 1-for-2 with the three-run homer and he walked twice. Mitch Haniger reached base four times with a base hit and three walks.
Cody Bellinger went 2-for-4 for the Dodgers with two RBI and a mammoth solo home run in the eighth inning off of Alex Colome that traveled 436 feet to right field.
Quotable
Scott Servais was asked about Ramirez’s start, his second off of the disabled list. They’ve been against the Astros and now the Dodgers, both teams that were playing in the World Series last season.
“Pretty is just depending on how you look at it,” Servais said. “Pretty pretty for me. I’ll take it. Hold that club to one run in five innings, certainly the pitch count was high. He threw the ball well against Houston, though, and kept a very good club down tonight. Hopefully we’ll keep him rolling because we need it. Our starting pitching is a little banged up right now with Paxton out and giving Marco a couple extra days. The guys in the bullpen need to step up and our offense needs to step up as well.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2018 at 10:52 PM.