Mariners drop most lopsided loss of season to Angels
Saturday night’s 16-3 drubbing by the Angels was the most lopsided Mariners loss of the season.
It may have also been the most deflating.
And it dragged on for well over three hours in the second of a four-game series at Angel Stadium in Anaheim.
“Guys are learning,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said during his postgame video call. “We knew we were going to have some nights like this this year, it’s just disappointing. We’ve been playing really good baseball. We haven’t had one of these games in a while.
“There’s not much you can do about this one. You’ve got to learn from it and you go take a shower, you come back tomorrow, day game, we’ll get right after it again.”
The game was far out of reach when the Mariners (13-22) sent in their defensive subs in the seventh. Utility man Tim Lopes made his big league pitching debut in the eighth.
The Mariners managed little on offense as they inched closer the the American League West basement, and their pitching staff collectively turned in its worst performance of this shortened season, allowing the season-high 16 runs.
Every Angels starter reached base at least once. Most had hits — Los Angeles combined for 13 of them, and scored in all but two innings. The Angels batted around twice.
Mariners pitchers gave up almost as many walks, issuing 11 free passes after a solid several games executing in the strike zone. Their relievers hit two more batters.
“I think we’ve done an outstanding job really the last two weeks,” Servais said. “Been really, really consistent, feel good about the progress we’re making, we just took a little bit of a step back tonight. It’s not going to stop the progress we’ve got going with a lot of our young guys. They know. They absolutely know. It’s not like you go out there and tell them to throw strikes. But, it has to be in attack mode all of the time and you’ve really got to trust your stuff early in the count.”
Mike Trout, of course, put the final touches on the thumping, scoring Los Angeles’ final run on a sac fly in the eighth. He also hit a no-doubt, three-run homer to left in the seventh — his second home run against the Mariners in as many nights and 46th of his career against Seattle — and finished 3-for-4 with two singles, the homer, a walk and drove in six runs.
Rookie Jo Adell drove in three for the Angels, including crushing the first two homers of his young career. Shohei Ohtani and, Anthony Rendon and Alberty Pujols each drove in two runs.
The Mariners never led after the Angels grabbed a quick 1-0 lead off Justus Sheffield in the first. They did tie it in the second, on a Lopes double, but the Angels took the lead for good minutes later on Adell’s first homer of the night.
Braden Bishop scratched a run across for Seattle with a single in the eighth, but it was far too late. Shed Long Jr. blasted a solo homer with two outs in the ninth to salvage one more run.
The game started to unravel for the Mariners in the fifth. After allowing only two earned runs across 18 innings in his past three outings, Sheffield labored in his most troubling start of the season, allowing six runs on four hits with four walks and six strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings.
“Justus Sheffield’s been on a great run for us, and I know he’s disappointed with the outing and the results he got tonight,” Servais said. “I’m going to go back to what I’ve talked about when we’re going well. Tonight we didn’t execute in those 0-0, 1-1 counts, and that’s kind of been our benchmark. It will always be our benchmark and really saw it tonight.
“Sheff just didn’t have typical fastball command. What we’ve seen out of him the last three or four times has just been outstanding fastball command and getting into his other pitchers, and tonight it was hard. It was a struggle.”
Sheffield kept the Mariners in reach after Adell’s two-run homer in the second made it 3-1, and retired the next 10 batters he faced, but a single and a pair of walks loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth.
He then lost Rendon, walking him on an eight-pitch at-bat, to push a run across and was pulled at 98 pitches.
“He had probably the best AB of the night,” Sheffield said. “I feel like I threw my best slider in that 3-2 count and thought I was going to get a swing, but he’s a smart hitter for a reason and he’s good for a reason. Just tough in that situation. “
Joey Gerber then gave up a two-run single to Albert Pujols before ending the threat with the Angels leading 6-1.
It only got worse from there. Aaron Fletcher recorded just two outs in the sixth, allowing four runs on three hits with two walks. Zac Grotz gave up four runs on three hits and four walks in his 1 1/3. Lopes gave up two more in the eighth.
This story was originally published August 29, 2020 at 10:16 PM.
