Mariners once again can’t come up with the big hit, lose winnable game 3-2

Mitch Garver’s brutal day helps doom Mariners to 3-2 loss

Baseball is a team sport, so it’s hard to pin a loss on a particular player. And to be fair, the Mariners struck out 10 times in this game, left 13 runners on base, were 1-for-14 with RISP, and four of the starting nine failed to record a single hit. But Mitch Garver’s 0-for-5 performance out of the eight-hole looms large in a game where scoring opportunities were slim; his -.409 WPA (Win Probability Added) is the worst I can remember recording for a single position player. Baseball is a team sport, but when Garver made his fifth out of the day, grounding out first-pitch swinging to strand runners on the bases in the top of the tenth, the Mariners’ fate in this game was effectively sealed.

The game-ending groundout will loom largest, but the troubles for Garver and the Mariners started in the second. Justin Turner and Luke Raley both got on with singles, but Garver struck out swinging to end the inning. That would repeat itself in the fourth, when Cal Raleigh led off with a double, moved to third on a Turner groundout, and then Jorge Polanco walked to put two on. Raley struck out, but then Dylan Moore hit a Fenway single to bring home Cal, tying the game at 1-1.

As dismal as Garver’s series in Boston was (0-for-9 with three strikeouts in just two games), Moore had the opposite experience (three doubles, clutch RBI single). Unfortunately, Garver was up next with a run-scoring opportunity, and DMo’s magic apparently doesn’t transfer down the lineup spot, as he struck out on three pitches.

The Mariners got their second run of the day in the fifth, thanks to Josh Rojas:

After a dismal past month where he was hitting .189, Rojas seems to be heating up; he’s slashing .286/.423/.619 over his past seven games, and while some of that is certainly White-Sox-pitching-inflated, 407 feet dead center at Fenway is no joke.

But that’s all the Mariners would be able to muster offensively. They had yet another opportunity in the seventh, with runners at the corners thanks to another Rojas hit, but the two trade deadline acquisitions failed to push the run across: Randy Arozarena flew out, too shallow to score the run, and Justin Turner grounded out.

After that, the next two Mariners scoring opportunities both came to a halt at the hands of Garver. Luke Raley was hit by a Lucas Sims pitch in the eighth and stole second; Dylan Moore advanced him to third with a ball hit well but right at a defender, but Garver went after Sims’ first pitch for an inning-ending groundout, rolling the ball over to third base as he has so many times this season.

“This guy’s a proven hitter in the league,” said Scott Servais postgame, when asked about Garver’s struggles. “He’s going through it right now. . .It’s just not going his way at all.” Servais pointed out others had chances to score today as well—most notably Turner, who in addition to grounding out in the seventh to end that threat, also made a critical non-productive first out in the top of the tenth—but nothing looms larger than the bottom of the tenth, when the Mariners had the bases loaded thanks to Cal swiping third on a wild pitch, Luke Raley getting hit by pitch, and the Red Sox pitching around Dylan Moore, understandably so. That brought up Garver, who once again went after the first pitch he saw, and once again rolled it to the left side of the infield.

Postgame, an emotional Garver made no excuses.

(As a standard-issue reminder: it’s unacceptable to make threats against players, and even more so if it’s for a sports betting-related reason, truly the absolute bottom of the loser barrel.)

I’m not sure what the way forward is for Garver and the Mariners. He’s the second catcher, so it’s not as easy as “send him to Arizona/phantom IL him to get his head right.” Harry Ford is a lovely boy and absolutely not ready yet to hit big-league pitching, and as much as a change is desired by the fanbase, realistically there isn’t a better option in the system. Most likely, the only way out is through.

On the pitching side, once again, you can’t ask for much more, although a little more depth from George Kirby would have been nice—but that’s sort of to be expected against this Red Sox lineup, who foul off a lot of pitches and put the ball in play often in their weird little ballpark, tiring out pitchers. Despite this, Kirby was nearly perfect on the day, although he got off to a rough start: he walked Masataka Yoshida (on a pitch that should have been ruled a strike, shades of Monday’s game) and then gave up a double to Rafael Devers on a fastball that caught too much plate. Yoshida would then score on a wild pitch, so one of Kirby’s only walks on the year came around to score, which should have been a signal this game was going to be extremely annoying.

With his splitter not getting chases and having to rely on his fastball-sinker combo more than he’d have liked, Kirby battled his way out of trouble all game, but was unable to escape the sixth, when Dominic Smith (a real thorn in the side of the Mariners this series) doubled and Red Sox deadline acquisition Danny Jansen shot a ball on the ground but through that fast infield for a game-tying run. Kirby was lifted for Austin Voth, who got the next two outs of the inning, but that snapped his streak of quality starts at nine.

As a fun side note, Kirby continued his tribute to Tim Wakefield by throwing a knuckleball for his first pitch of the game (although he was annoyed it was a ball).

The Sun Hat Award of the day goes to Collin Snider, who worked an extremely high-leverage inning-plus, having to be called upon to replace Gregory Santos in the eighth, who had to leave the game today during his inning with yet another injury, this time a bicep issue. He’ll have an MRI. Snider struck out Danny Jansen to end the inning, and then went back in the ninth to face the bottom of the Red Sox order. After getting his first two outs, Jarren Duran and Romy Gonzalez hit back-to-back singles (Gonzalez after a nine-pitch at-bat where he fouled off a ton of good pitches), putting Snider in a tough spot pitching to Tyler O’Neill. Snider dialed up a great sweeper to punch out O’Neill for maybe his biggest moment as a Mariner yet:

Sorry they couldn’t get it done for you, Collin, but thank you for your service.

All in all, as frustrating as this game was, sweeping the White Sox helps offset this series loss, and the Mariners now return home for a very long homestand packed with off-days. Hopefully that helps them heal up from some of these dings and dents: Jorge Polanco had to come out with that recurring sore knee. Servais said the move was somewhat precautionary, as he wanted to preserve Polanco’s momentum as he’s been trending up lately and not risk a more severe injury with the team going into an off-day tomorrow. Also, Victor Robles was out today with a hip issue, so not available to pinch-hit for Garver in the tenth. And maybe that goes for mental health, too; both Garver and the fanbase can’t take another game like today’s.