Mariners pitching does their job, offense forgets to clock in as Dodgers win gives them NL West title
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – In similar fashion to yesterday’s loss to Los Angeles, the Seattle Mariners failed to provide their pitching staff any real support until it was far too late, falling to the Dodgers, 6-2, in extra innings. With their win and a loss from the San Francisco Giants earlier in the ballgame, Los Angeles secured their tenth NL West title in the past eleven seasons, celebrating on the T-Mobile Park diamond as the large contingent of Dodgers fans in attendance celebrated. On the other side of things, the Mariners find themselves still searching for traction during a September where they very well could be atop the division as both Texas and Houston have also lost these past two days. Seattle’s postseason push remains on, but failing to capitalize on not only their in-game chances but the ability to gain ground will most likely haunt them in the coming weeks.
Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryce Miller pitched five and a third innings of shutout ball for his team in the loss (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Miller makes his moment matter
Although this story has been told a few times already, after a game like this it simply must be restated. When the Mariners lost Robbie Ray and Marco Gonzales to season ending injuries, things looked bleak considering what they bring to the table and the sheer number of innings those two can eat up. Bryan Woo and today’s starter Bryce Miller have done an incredible job not only to eat those innings up, but also perform well enough to ensure that Seattle stays in the thick of not only a playoff race, but a division title chase. Despite being at the second most innings pitched in a year ever during his career (His season high was 133 last season, spread amongst three minor league teams), Miller went out against a loaded Los Angeles lineup and never allowed a Dodgers runner to even get to third base.
The most trouble that Bryce Miller faced in this game was the doubles from Los Angeles outfielder Jason Heyward, two of which came when Miller was pitching as Heyward had three total in this contest. Besides those doubles by Heyward, coming in the second and fifth innings, Miller didn’t allow any Los Angeles batter to even reach second base. Outside of the hits, the Mariners starter only had that one walk allowed and it came right before the last out that he recorded, so on the latter end of his outing. While there were some statistics relating to Miller’s pitches that make you wonder how he was so successful tonight, Bryce got the job done against one of the best teams in baseball and that deserves a cap tip.
Of the 86 pitches that Bryce Miller threw tonight, he threw five types of pitches which included the fastball, sinker, slider, changeup, and sweeper. Of those five types, Miller saw velocity increase in his slider and changeup while only his sweeper saw an increase in spin rate. Bryce was only able to generate five whiffs in his outing, with all of them coming on his fastball. Despite some of these deeper numbers suggesting that Miller may not have had much success, one aspect of his night tells a story as to why he had so much positive in his outing: of the 16 balls that the Dodgers put into play when Bryce was on the mound, only three of them were hit hard.
The Seattle Mariners offense generated traffic on the bases, but couldn’t cash in with runners in scoring position, going 1-13 in those situations (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Offense largely fails to get the big hit when it matters
First and foremost, it needs to be noted that the Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff is incredibly deep. From a rotation that has been able to sustain itself despite losing multiple starters due to injuries, to their bullpen that’s been one of the best in all of baseball, Los Angeles can lock down almost any lineup. Similar to what happened last night, Seattle was able to get some runners on base and generate traffic, enough to be able to win this game before we needed the two extra innings. Even in the extra innings, the Mariners had chances to walk this game off against the Dodgers but couldn’t do so. To begin this game, legendary Los Angeles starter Clayton Kershaw didn’t quite have his control, as was evident by the two walks he issued in the first inning, but despite this the Seattle batters were chasing balls out of the strike zone. Kershaw only went four innings in this game, but the Mariners couldn’t take advantage of that lack of control.
Seattle went scoreless for the first nine innings of the game, only pushing runs across in the tenth and eleventh, and the 20 innings in this series the Mariners have tallied a dismal five runs. The first run of the game for Seattle came in the tenth as J.P. Crawford doubled to right field to easily score Josh Rojas from third base, tying the game up at a run each. The Mariners had a golden opportunity to walk the game off in front of a sold-out crowd of 45,818 at T-Mobile Park but squandered that as well. Although there were two outs, Seattle had the bases loaded after Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips intentionally walked center fielder Julio Rodríguez. It was up to Teoscar Hernández, now riding a 30-game on-base streak after tonight’s game, to put the ball in play and secure victory, but all his mighty bat could muster was a measly ground out.
The Seattle Mariners bullpen largely did their job in this game, but got into trouble during the eleventh inning (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
‘Pen report
This is going to be a long bullpen report not only because the Mariners had to empty out their relievers in this game, but also considering what happened to them as we went through the two innings of free baseball. Seattle sent out six relievers in this game, as Tayler Saucedo, Matt Brash, Andrés Muñoz, Justin Topa, Gabe Speier, and Isaiah Campbell came out after Bryce Miller’s outing ended. Immediately relieving Miller, Saucedo only needed one pitch to get out of the sixth inning thanks to a double play before working a clean seventh inning outside Jason Heyward’s third double of the night. Matt Brash and Andrés Muñoz were absolutely lights out for Seattle, both retiring the side in order, before things started to fall apart in the tenth and eleventh. The Dodgers got a run off of Justin Topa, unearned though as it was the ghost runner Amed Rosario on second who came home thanks to a sacrifice fly by former Mariner Kolten Wong.
The eleventh inning saw everything fall apart as Gabe Speier and Isaiah Campbell failed to prevent any sort of bleeding. Despite what some may think, while this fall apart in the late innings was unfortunate, the bullpen shouldn’t have been put in this position in the first place after the offense failed repeatedly to do their job. Spier and Campbell allowed five runs combined on four hits, as five batters for the Dodgers reached base after Los Angeles recorded their first out of the inning.
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw and his teams bullpen shut down the Seattle Mariners for the first nine innings of this game (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Dodgers celebration a tale of what could be for the Mariners
With their win over Seattle plus losses from the San Francisco Giants today, Los Angeles clinched the National League West title for the tenth time in the past eleven seasons. Champagne was poured and sprayed at T-Mobile Park, division title shirts were distributed, but not to the home team tonight. While their respective paths and rosters are very different, the Mariners could be repeating the history that the Dodgers made here tonight, but the likelihood of that decreases each night that they squander good performances. Seattle’s pitching staff absolutely did their job and should be celebrating a win tonight and looking to take the series tomorrow, but instead they’re on the potential heels of being swept. Yes, the Dodgers are a good and deep team that could end up competing for the World Series and yes, the Mariners very well could have a two-game lead over them right now. Both of these can be very true.
It’s been showcased all season long that with this pitching staff, despite them being without several arms (Ray, Gonzales, Emerson Hancock, Penn Murfee), the Mariners can hang around with any team in baseball. It’s their offense that needs to pick up the slack, and even then, we’ve seen that the Seattle bats can generate the necessary traffic to potentially cause havoc, but they haven’t been able to get those “timely” hits that manager Scott Servais often manages. While the Mariners have gotten big second half performances from names like Julio Rodríguez, Teoscar Hernández, and Cal Raleigh amongst others, there have been instances in games like this since September began where even they haven’t recorded the clutch knock. The pieces are there for the puzzle to be put together, but the Mariners are effectively jamming the square block into the circle hole at the moment when it comes to being a consistent offense.
With a San Francisco Giants loss earlier in the day and their win against the Seattle Mariners, the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the NL West division title (Photos by Mathew Bermudez)
Quick notes
The Mariners dropped the home series with tonight’s 6-2 extra inning loss… they are still 18-12 over their last 30 games and 26-14 over their last 40.
Seattle falls to 6-14 in extra innings with the loss.
With a 45,818 attendance, tonight’s game was a sellout… Seattle is now 2-3 this season when T-Mobile Park is sold out.
Mike Ford drove in the Mariners first run in the 10th inning with a single to center field… Josh Rojas scored to tie the game 1-1.
Ford is the 4th player in Mariners history with a pinch-hit, game-tying hit in extra innings. ...others: Scott Bradley, Aug. 11, 1990 vs. BOS, Tino Martinez, Sept. 18, 1991 vs. TOR & Luis Torrens, Sept. 29, 2022 vs. Texas.
Ford recorded his 34th RBI of the season with the single.
Julio Rodríguez has hit safely in his last 8-consecutive games (9/8-c)… he went 1-for-4 tonight with his 35th double of the season and an intentional walk.
Rodríguez was caught stealing third base in the 3rd inning… he has been caught stealing 10 times this season.
Rodríguez is the first player age 22-or-younger with 35+ doubles and 35+ stolen bases in a season since Hanley Ramírez for the 2006 Marlins.
He is the 4th player in MLB history with 60+ doubles & 60+ stolen bases through his first 2 MLB seasons and the first since Ichiro Suzuki-SEA (2001-02)...the other 2 are Barry Bonds-PIT (1986-87) & Chris Sabo-CIN (1988-89).
J.P. Crawford put Ford in scoring position in the 10th inning with a double to right field.
The double was his 32nd of the season.
Crawford also recorded a walk in the 1st inning… he now ties Adley Rutschman-BAL for 3rd place in the AL West in walks this season.
Ty France picked up Seattle’s first hit of the night with a single in the 2nd inning… he went 2-for-4 with another single in the 7th.
France has recorded a hit or more in 4 of his last 5 games… 2 of his last 5 have been multi-hit games.
Josh Rojas scored Seattle’s 1st run of the night and recorded a single in the 8th inning while pinch-hitting for Dylan Moore.
Sam Haggerty went 1-for-3 with a single.
Both Haggerty and Rojas were left on base in the 8th inning after Hernández struck out.
Teoscar Hernández extended his career-high and MLB-leading on-base streak to 30 games (8/15-c) with a walk in the 1st inning.
The streak is Seattle’s longest on-base streak since Robinson Canó’s 34-game streak from 4/30-6/5 in 2016.
Hernández scored the Mariners 2nd and last run in the 11th inning off a wild pitch by Joe Kelly.
In his 23rd start of the season, Bryce Miller pitched 5.1 scoreless innings and allowed 4 hits and 1 walk.
He stuck out 4 over 86 pitches and 54 strikes thrown.
Miller is 1 of 11 rookie pitchers in the Majors to have made 20+ starts.
The Mariners bullpen (Tayler Saucedo, Matt Brash, Andrés Muñoz, Justin Topa, Gabe Speier, and Isaiah Campbell) combined for 5.2 innings and allowed 6 runs (4 earned) with 2 walks and 6 strikeouts.
The Mariners challenged a hit-by-pitch call in the 10th inning… the call was upheld and James Outman advanced to first base.
What’s next?
Following this heart breaker in extra innings, the Mariners will look to avoid being swept by the Dodgers when these teams meet for the final game of the series and the last of Seattle’s six-game homestand. While the Astros and Rangers have both lost back-to-back games to allow the Mariners the chance to gain ground on the division lead, Seattle has fallen flat on their face trying to sprint ahead and now will look to stop a two-game losing streak before it bleeds into potentially something worse. The final matchup of this three-game series is tomorrow, Sunday, September 17th with a first pitch time of 1:10PM PST as Logan Gilbert will face off against a to be announced starter for the Dodgers. Seattle will be celebrating Hispanic Heritage Day, wearing their “Los Marineros” jerseys in Sunday cream form.