Mariners play stupid game, (do not) win stupid (any) prizes

Thanks I already hate Sutter Home Park

Kudos to the ROOT crew for making Sutter Health Park look like a real MLB park, and Sacramento look like a real MLB city, with artful drone shots from far away highlighting the weird Ziggurat building looming over right field and via a trick of perspective creating the image of Sacramento having a large and lively downtown, as Potomkin Village as it may be. As someone who has wished for a Go Go Gadget arm to take a more flattering selfie, I get that. But also, Sutter Home Park (that’s what I’m calling it now and I’m not changing it) is not an MLB-caliber field. It is a minor-league field, and tonight the Mariners played a minor-league game there, complete with inexcusably bush-league bad umpire calls, rowdy beer batter fans, and extra-innings hijinks, coming out on the losing end of the game—as road teams often do—7-6.

Those hoping to see Bryce Miller cured of his early-season woes were disappointed tonight, including yours truly, as my It’s Okay, Bryce Is Just Cold theory had cold water dumped on it by the 85-degree weather in Sacramento, known as the Farm-to-Fork capital of California. (This game certainly had me exclaiming Fork! or something close to it.) Once again, Miller fell behind hitters and wasn’t in the zone enough, laboring through four innings and allowing four runs on seven hits. Some of that damage was deserved, with Bryce having to get back onto the plate after falling behind hitters; some was bad luck, as well-located pitches on the inner part of the plate were muscled into the outfield; others were a factor of Sutter Health’s alarmingly small foul territory, as weak-contact would-be outs instead snuck into the stands. Still, the lack of swing-and-miss continues to be an issue for Miller; he didn’t record his first and only strikeout of the night until the fourth inning, Whither the whiffs, Bryce? Whither the whiffs.

“It took me two innings to get the feel of the off-speed,” said Bryce postgame. “The third and the fourth inning were better. But I took too long to adjust. It needs to be from the jump, and not 60 pitches in when I make the adjustment.”

Pregame, there was a shot of the Mariners bullpen attempting to repair part of the bullpen fence padding that had fallen off, and in hindsight, I probably should have understood that as a sign and tried to pass this recap off to someone else.

The Mariners had a big inning in the third off Luis Severino, who’d held the Mariners down in Seattle back in the opening series of the season but also got pretty lucky, striking out six but walking four. Back then, the Mariners weren’t able to punish Severino for his wildness; this time, they were able to gang up on him, at least in one inning. Rhylan Thomas and J.P. Crawford—who already had a single for a thirteen-game hitting streak, setting a new career high—worked back-to-back walks, and then Jorge Polanco drove in the Mariners’ first run of the game with a single. Two batters later, Rowdy Tellez made those narrow foul lines work for him, sneaking a two-out double down the right field line that ping-ponged around and scored what was at the time the tying run. Miles Mastrobuoni and Ben Williamson each followed with singles of their own, and four runs in an inning felt like the offense might be clicking again after two straight low-scoring games in Texas.

But that was all the Mariners would do for quite a while, allowing Severino to immediately re-establish himself with a quick 1-2-3 inning that only consumed seven pitches. It turns out Sutter Home follows the same rules as Fenway: however many runs you score, it’s not enough.

Unfortunately, Miller’s tough night put the rest of the bullpen in a tough spot, as he had to fight to get through four innings, needing 94 pitches. Carlos Vargas did hero’s work tonight in relief of Miller, working two scoreless innings and wiggling around some bad-luck traffic. Collin Snider couldn’t keep the lid screwed down on the A’s, giving up a leadoff double to Rooker and hitting Soderstrom. The A’s small-balled the Mariners from there, with a pair of sac flies pushing Rooker around and breaking the tie. Leo Rivas helped cap the damage there with an excellent inning-ending play, because Leo Rivas is not afraid of a Triple-A park; right now all parks look like Triple-A parks to Lightning Leo.

Oh whoops, this isn’t even the right Rivas play. That’s how many balls were put in play directly at him. Here’s the other one if you’re interested (it’s not quite as dazzling, but was just as valuable).

The Mariners got BABIP’ed out of their own potential go-ahead inning in the seventh: Rhylan Thomas was robbed of an infield hit by an excellent play from eternal pest Jacob Wilson, and Jorge Polanco smoked a ball but directly at first-baseman Nick Kurtz, making J.P. Crawford— on board with another single, as his 13-game hitting streak is now a career high—a dead duck for an inning-ending double play.

They made up for that in the eighth. With Holman on for another inning of work, Cal Raleigh accepted a one-out walk, and then some silliness: Rowdy Tellez reached on a swinging bunt, and then with two outs, Ben Williamson came up with a jam shot of his own:

Mitch Spence was able to close the door after that, cooling down the red-hot Leo Rivas on a popout, but once again, the game was reset.

Trent Thornton took the eighth and got his first two outs before giving up another hit to Luis Urías, who recorded more hits in tonight’s game than he did during his entire Mariners tenure (do not fact check this). He was able to get Butler to ground out for the final out of the inning, but with Mason Miller deployed from the A’s pen (in a non-save situation, are you taking notes, Dan), it was just a question of which Mariners reliever would get the top of the lineup in the bottom of the ninth. (*To their credit the Mariners did get two on via walks against Miller, taking advantage of some wildness, and at least hung 20+ high-stress pitches on Miller.)

In the bottom of the ninth, Wilson put Thornton out for a second inning of work against the heart of the A’s order, and once again, Thornton got a quick two outs before pinch-hitter Seth Brown zapped a base hit through the left side of the infield, bringing up Langeliers, who had already driven in two of the A’s runs on the evening, one on an absolute moonshot of a solo home run. Thornton walked him, but was able to escape as JJ Bleday drove one into the absolute corner of the ballpark where Rhylan Thomas tracked it down at the—325 sign? 325. As in feet. Stupid little ballpark.

On to extras, then. Donovan Solano did his job against another good pitcher in Trent Ferguson, flying out to move ghost runner Cal Raleigh along to third. Miles Mastrobuoni then hit what Aaron Goldsmith called “the shortest sac fly you’ll see all year” and I’m tempted to agree, as Tyler Soderstrom—not a left fielder by trade but forced to the position by the arrival of fellow first baseman and water cooler in a wig Nick Kurtz—seemed baffled that Raleigh was in motion and threw way offline, allowing Cal to score what was then the go-ahead run.

Now it was the Mariners’ turn to deploy their closer. But before the ROOT broadcast was even back on TV, pesky pesky Jacob Wilson took the first pitch he saw from Andrés Muñoz and cranked it through the right side for the answer-back run. Perhaps rattled, Muñoz fell behind Kurtz 3-0 before eventually walking him in a full count, although to this viewer (and the entire ROOT/710 Seattle Sports crew) it looked like Kurtz should have been punched out on a check swing. But wait, there was more stupidity to be had: with Luis Urías at bat, after an entirely blown strike call and a fielder’s choice groundout, the home plate umpire overturned the play, saying Cal had interfered with Urías despite the replay showing no such interference. That loaded the bases with no outs and continued stress on Muñoz, who struck out Butler looking, and then battled Rooker to strike him out swinging. The final hurdle was the A’s most dangerous hitter, Tyler Soderstrom. Muñoz got him, too:

And this is where I get mad, because Muñoz did heroic work there, working against the home plate umpire and the hitters he had to face AND the Manfred Man, and it would ultimately all go for naught, because the offense rewarded Muñoz’s heroism with a used teabag of an offensive inning, which admittedly is a lot to ask of the bottom of the lineup, but also at this point the fans remaining in Sutter Home park were howling like wild dogs and it was giving me a migraine and I’m cranky. Just because it’s a minor league park doesn’t mean you have to act like minor league fans when the beer batter is up.

That left poor Casey Legumina, our sweet Bean Boy, in the spot of having to keep down the pesky A’s once more. The A’s were able to small-ball Soderstrom to third, and then the Mariners issued two intentional walks to load the bases to bring up...Jacob Wilson? The A’s best hitter?

“Wilson puts the ball on the ground and we were hoping we’d get it on the ground,” said Dan Wilson postgame. “That’s on me, and that’s a tough way to lose.”

We appreciate the accountability, Dan, but it sure was. The injury-battered Mariners now face for the rest of the series a red-hot pesky A’s lineup with a depleted bullpen in a Gymboree of a ballpark. Feels...bad. Almost as bad as a 7 PM start, yuck, don’t miss those.