Mariners played their final road game. What was best/worst of 2018 travel circuit?
First the Seattle Mariners officially closed the book on their playoff hopes, that ended with the Oakland Athletics beating the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night.
Now the Mariners can close the book on their 2018 road trips, with the continually pesky Texas Rangers handing them a 6-1 loss on Sunday at Globe Life Park to win the three-game series.
It was a breezy day for Wade LeBlanc through five scoreless innings until the Rangers took the lead with a four-run sixth inning, one night after the Mariners blanked the Rangers, 13-0.
But Seattle (85-70) had nothing for offense outside of Guillermo Heredia’s RBI double in the third inning.
So the Mariners finish their season with a 44-37 road record and head home for a seven-game home stand to conclude 2018, starting Monday with the first of three games against the Athletics and then four more games against the Rangers.
“We’ve swung the bats better on the road than we have at home,” Mariners manager Scott Servais told reporters afterward. “I’ve often said that you have to swing the bat well on the road to win. Obviously, that’s what we didn’t do enough of today.
“But overall on the season we’ve had some good trips and good series on the road, just haven’t been enough.”
The Mariners are 7-8 against Texas (66-89) this year.
And that’s been part of the problem in this second-half slide out of the playoff chase for the Mariners – not beating the teams they should. Case in point: an 0-4 record against the San Diego Padres. They also lost three of four games against the Blue Jays in August, and now another series loss to the Rangers.
Heredia followed his three-hit day on Saturday night with an RBI double to scores Kristopher Negron from first base in the top of the third inning. Negron led off the frame with a single.
Then Heredia reached third on the throw to the plate, but he was stranded there when Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus dived to snag David Freitas’ hard ground ball. Then Jean Segura and Robinson Cano both popped out to end the inning. Mitch Haniger got his first day off since July 6.
LeBlanc cruised through five innings, though he had allowed six hits in those scoreless frames. The Mariners had pitched 14 scoreless innings in hitter-friendly Globe Life Park up to that point after Saturday’s shutout.
Then a rocky sixth inning.
LeBlanc allowed two doubles and a walk with Nomar Mazara’s two-bagger giving the Rangers a 2-1 lead. Robinson Chirinos’ RBI single off of Nick Vincent made it 3-1, with all three runs charged to LeBlanc.
LeBlanc finished with five-plus innings pitched, allowed eight hits, three runs, one walk and he struck out five on 81 pitches.
“He’s had an outstanding season,” Servais said. “Really you can’t say enough about how he goes about it, and he’s always got a pretty good idea of how he’s going to attack the opposition. He threw the ball really good today, they just got on us in the sixth.”
Joey Gallo added his 39th home run of the season with a pinch-hit two-run shot off of Ryan Cook in the bottom of the eighth.
The Mariners had just six hits.
“We had chances and we had guys in scoring position and we needed the big double, the big swing to get us back into it today,” Servais said. “And we didn’t get it.”
Let’s get to it. A few takeaways:
Pack the suitcases
The Mariners have no more road games – and will finish 2018 with a seven-game homestand starting Monday against the Athletics at Safeco Field.
Their 2018 road record: 44-37.
Let’s look at some of the highlights and lowlights of the Mariners’ 2018 road trips.
Highlights: They took three of four games against the AL Central-leading Indians in Cleveland to end April, pushing their record to 16-11 – and maybe helped the Mariners take off.
They swept a four-game series in Baltimore as part of their season-high eight-game win streak from June 25-July 3, and that came off the heels of a 2-5 road trip against the Red Sox and Yankees.
And it looked like their playoff hopes were resurrected when the Mariners beat Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton and Dallas Keuchel for a four-game sweep in Houston from Aug. 9-12, improving to 69-50. Instead, they followed with 10 losses their next 16 games.
Lowlights: They followed two of three wins against the then-NL West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks with a two-game sweep in San Diego against the Padres from Aug. 28-29.
But a back-breaker was right before the All-Star break. They went from a half-game back of the Houston Astros on July 1 to five games back by the time they went 1-5 in Anaheim and Colorado, including a walk-off loss to the Rockies just before the break.
Ovation for Beltre
Adrian Beltre walked onto the field for the top of the sixth inning and then, in a classy move by Rangers interim manager Don Wakamatsu, he was removed so he could walk back to the Rangers dugout after a video tribute and standing ovation in what might have been Beltre’s final game of his Hall of Fame career at Glove Life Park.
Beltre has said he’ll decide what he does next year in the offseason. The third baseman is 39 years old (with five Gold Gloves and four All-Star appearances) but has rejuvenated his career since he spent 2005-09 with the Mariners. He went from hitting eight home runs and 27 doubles his final season in Seattle to 28 homers and 49 doubles (the most in the American League) the next season with the Boston Red Sox.
Beltre has spent the past eight seasons with the Rangers and has hit 198 homers (three seasons with at least 30) and has a .305 batting average in that span.
Servais was a scout in the Rangers’ organization when they signed Beltre. Mariners players and coaches were on the top railing of the dugout clapping for Beltre when he exited.
“Fantastic player,” Servais said. “What he brings to your clubhouse and the way he goes about his business and certainly the career he’s had speaks volumes, but more importantly he’s a really good person. I think one of the throwback leaders in the clubhouse where everybody kind of looks at him and how he goes about things. Very special player and he’s had a great career.”
His best season at the plate was the year before he came to the Mariners, hitting 48 home runs, 121 RBI and batting .334 (1.017 OPS) in 2004 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
That’s not Haniger
Kristopher Negron started in right field – so now he’s played in right field, left field, second base, shortstop, third base and designated hitter for the Mariners this year.
But for his first day in right field, the Mariners didn’t really seem to miss Haniger’s stellar defense so much, with Haniger getting a rare day off. Negron threw out Jurickson Profar at second base on a single by Elvis Andrus in the first inning, and then Negron made a difficult lunging catch to end the fifth inning out there, too.
Negron came into the big leagues as a shortstop, so not bad for his first game in right field.
This month has amounted to a try out for the soon-to-be 33-year-old Negron as maybe their utility player for 2019. The Mariners acquired Negron in a late-August trade for cash considerations and sent him to Triple-A Tacoma.
Negron also went 1-for-4 at the plate. He’s batting .368 with the Mariners.
“Kris continues to play well,” Servais said. “He’s a good athlete. He can throw and he’s done some things in the batter’s box, as well. He’ll continue to get opportunities here as we look at some guys on the last homestand.”
Play of the game
The Mariners had a 1-0 lead until Nomar Mazara’s two run double in the bottom of the sixth inning against Wade LeBlanc.
LeBlanc struck Mazara out on a curveball in the second inning. He tried another two-strike curve to Mazara in the sixth, but left it in the middle of the plate.
“I tried to go back to it and just left it up,” LeBlanc said.
Top batter
Joey Gallo hit his 39th home run of the season with a two-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning as a pinch hitter.
Elvis Andrus went 2-for-3 with a double and scored the tying run on Nomar Mazara’s double.
For the Mariners, Robinson Cano went 2-for-4 for his fifth consecutive multi-hit game. He’s 13-for-18 over his past 18 at-bats.
Top pitcher
Mariners rookie right-hander Matt Festa continues to impress. The 2016 seventh-round draft pick out of East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings with two strikeouts in this one.
Quotable
LeBlanc has a 3.55 ERA for the season after beginning the year in the Mariners bullpen. He was asked what’s been so different about starting compared to being a reliever, including all of last year in the Pirates’ bullpen.
“I probably shag a lot less over the past couple months,” he laughed. “But other than that it’s pretty much business as usual. I robbed like eight homers this year from our own guys out there.”
This story was originally published September 23, 2018 at 3:06 PM.