Power of friendship abandons Seattle, Mariners lose 3-1

the sun may be setting on this era of mariners baseball

The environment inside the Mariners clubhouse today was subdued. Last night’s news that Ty France had been place on irrevocable outright waivers came as a shock to many in the organization. No one was explicit about it, and if you’d asked they’d give all the right answers — “baseball is a business” and “this is how it goes sometimes” — but the atmosphere was no less real.

Ty, despite his struggles since his 2022 All-Star campaign, has been a leader and a valued clubhouse presence since coming over in that legendary trade that also landed star reliever Andrés Muñoz. His amiable personality and lovable smile cemented his position as the team’s (non-Tucker) golden retriever.

Of particular note is his friendship with shortstop J.P. Crawford. The pair have been downright inseparable for the past few years. Their friendship and obvious shared joy has been a constant source of serotonin for Mariners fans.

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Before the game tonight, Ty had a mature outlook over his situation, telling the media “you can play out every scenario in your head, but you don’t know what’s going to happen... I’m just going to wait and see what happens. I’ll find out where I’ll be tomorrow.” With that mentality, he seemed to see T-Mobile park from a new perspective. Literally, in fact, as pre-game he took reps at shortstop, second base, and even threw a pitch from the mound. Hanging close to his friend J.P. the whole way.

Combined with the unclear status of Julio after leaving yesterday’s game, the Ty situation was enough to put a serious damper on the Mariners today.

And it didn’t really get better at game time. After Bryce Miller worked a quick first inning, J.P. stepped up to the plate to lead things off for the M’s. And was blasted by an 86 mph changeup on his right wrist. Despite his obvious pain, the team elected to keep him in the game, and he was able to score the Mariners’ only run off a Cal Raleigh single. But after that he walked straight through the dugout and into the clubhouse. Dylan Moore replaced him at short, and Luke Raley came in to take first. We found out post game that J.P. had suffered a hairline fracture of his right pinkie.

For the rest of the game, the Mariners were nearly completely shutout from the base paths. They threatened to think about forming a committee to consider the possibility of putting forwards a proposal to put a rally together in the bottom of the sixth when Robles and Cal each reached base. But with two outs, Mitch Garver took strike three at the knees to end the inning. Aside from a Clase infield single in the eighth, no Mariner would reach base for the rest of the night.

The same was not true of the Angels. In the top of the eighth, Ryne Stanek came on in relief. He promptly walked the first two batters he faced before striking out Nolan Schanuel. Andrés Muñoz came in to replace him, but was unable to keep the tying run from scoring after a double steal and a sac fly.

But he did escape the eighth. Thornton replaced Muñoz in the top of the ninth, and the new arm quickly got himself into trouble by, what else, walking two batters. With two on and two out, Jo Adell came up to the plate and hit a ground ball that just got out of the reach of Polanco. One run scored easily, and a weird glove flip to no one by Cal allowed another run to score, making it 3-1 Angels. Angels closer Carlos Estévez came in for the bottom of the ninth and got the Mariners 1-2-3 on just 9 pitches. Ballgame.

After the game, Scott Servais said that the team has got to stop giving away ballgames. “You’ve got to go take it... you have to constantly be on the attack. If you let your guard down, if you don’t stay with that aggressive mindset, if you’re afraid to lose: you’re going to lose.” He also called out the team, saying that someone — or several someones — needed to step up in the clubhouse and lead the team going forwards. It was a sentiment echoed by today’s starting pitcher Bryce Miller.

Miller, who threw 7 scoreless innings tonight, mentioned that the team was putting too much pressure on individual games, individual at-bats, individual pitches. He went on to say “I wish we could go out and play and just have fun. No one’s having fun right now.”

That is really what was lost today, more than the game. Just 3 years ago, this team operated on the fun differential. Going out and playing ballgames for the love of the game, playing loose, playing easy, and winning close games. And now with Ty cleaning out his locker, J.P.’s finger broken, and Julio — the man who loves baseball more than anyone on this planet — out, there is no more fun in the clubhouse.

And more than tonight’s game, that’s the real loss.

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