By Bel Garcia

Seattle, WA - After a tough road trip where the Mariners went 3-7 against bad ball clubs, Seattle returned home for what could be a franchise changing homestand. They welcomed the Texas Rangers to T-Mobile Park; the Rangers hoping to bounce back after losing their last three games. The Mariners have had to face their own losses recently, coming off a jaw-dropping road loss, in which they gave up eleven runs in one inning and lost by one run. Tonight’s game against Texas marked the 17th time that these teams have faced each other this season. Unfortunately, the Mariners did not add this series opener to the win column, instead it was a 5-0 loss. Seattle doesn’t have the greatest percentage in series openers at T-Mobile Park, with only a record of 26-23.

It’s important to note that Seattle has had to face adversity as of late with several injuries to players that have been pivotal. Julio Rodriguez, Cal Raleigh, and Eugenio Suarez have all been tagged by the injury bug. Cal Raleigh has not spent time on the injury list, such as Rodriguez and Suarez, but he is playing with an injured right thumb. He aggravated the finger on Sunday against the KC Royals catching a pitch from Matt Brash. Raleigh is playing through the pain and will continue to do so to the best of his ability, until the pain is no longer tolerable. Tonight, Eugenio Suarez was activated after suffering a fracture in his left index finger and spending some time on the injury list. Suarez was not ready to take his position on third base yet, as he is not yet catching balls, but he was still in the lineup as the designated hitter. Before his injury Suarez was playing some of the best games that we’ve witnessed this season with 31 home runs for the season, it is now his fourth career season with 30+ homers.

Tonight, it was the Texas Rangers who struck first. A long ball by Josh Jung put them on the board and gave them the early lead. For the Mariners, their offensive woes continued throughout this game. As we have known the Mariners to do, they had the opportunity to tie the ballgame up or take the lead with a couple of hits by France and Haniger, but they were stranded on base. This was the continuous trend on the night, not having consistent hits and the lack of ability to capitalize when they had runners on base. We’ll just call this one the Josh Jung game, as he played a part in all the Texas Rangers scoring runs. The dagger to end this one came in the top of the eight, with another Jung homer that also scored Josh Smith and Adolis Garcia.

On the mound for the Mariners tonight was Robbie Ray, who has now had five seasons with 200+ strikeouts. He looked good at the beginning of this one, and then gave up the run to Jung in the send inning and another in the sixth. Allowing the second scoring run would end Robbie Ray’s time on the mound in the top of the sixth, with a line of five and two thirds innings pitched; six hits, two runs, two earned runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts. While it may be easy to blame Robbie Ray and Diego Castillo for allowing five runs in the game, we must look to the offense as well. Mariners’ offense had a whopping zero scoring runs on the board through all nine innings.

We cannot point the finger at the pitchers and always expect the greatest from them when our offense is giving them no scoring runs. It’s important for your best players to be on the field and that may have not been the case for some of these games, but the Mariners must find a way to win and avoid dragging their way into the playoffs. Game two of the series takes place on Wednesday, with the Orioles and Blue Jays both also losing their games today, the Mariners need five wins to secure their playoff berth.

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