The Seattle Mariners, who are in a deadlock wildcard race, lost another tight game on Friday night. The Mariners, who own baseball’s longest playoff drought, dropped in the wildcard standings in a pivotal loss to the Angels. With the loss to the Los Angeles Angels, they now are a complete game back of the Boston Red Sox and are directly tied with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Mariners WildCard Standings Update
Woes Continue With Scoring Opportunities
A packed house in T-Mobile Park watched their Mariners team struggle to provide offense. It was another stellar pitching performance from both the starting pitcher Marco Gonzales as well as the bullpen. The lineup could not seem to get that magical timely hit that the Mariners so desperately needed to tie the game late. Seattle bats left six runners in scoring position. Runners in scoring positions have been a struggle for the Mariners lineup all season. Their constant inability to provide a cushion of run support to back up their pitching was again seen on display.
The seventh inning started more than promising. An electric leadoff triple by Luis Torrens had the crowd rocking. A walk after had the ballpark ready to explode. All were quickly quieted when three strikeouts followed. The Mariners strikeout percentage rate is 24.9%. With many young hitters as well as players who hit for power, this is to be expected. Of course, having three significant strikeouts in the middle of one of their most important games in recent memory was a disappointment to all watching. The Mariners currently have a runner in scoring position team total batting average of .225. This is the worst in the league. They had the opportunities, and they went about it an instead 2021 Mariners way. However, it did not matter that the Mariners went down in a rather typical way. The crowd was in on every pitch. There were sighs of relief, moments of anguish, and everything in between. Even though the struggles with scoring were familiar, so much of the game was hopeful to fans. Even though the Mariners did not deliver in the big moments, they put on a postseason-style ballgame.
Late Magic Didn’t Work This Time
The Mariners had the opportunity to move into a potential tie, but instead, they lost ground. With both Boston and Toronto winning, the Mariners knew that they needed to win to keep up before game time. Unfortunately, the close, intense game they have become accustomed to lately did not go their way. With only two games, it is do-or-die that the Mariners win both. Boston controls their destiny. Seattle and Toronto have to rely on others and win themselves to carry them into the playoffs, hopefully. The Mariners lose ground in the wildcard standings today, but anything can happen tomorrow.
Two Games Remaining
Saturday will see Chris Flexen take the mound against Jhonathan Diaz. The Mariners will take advantage of a veteran pitcher in Flexen and a rookie pitcher in Diaz. Diaz will be pitching in only his third game in the big leagues. The lineup is expected to stay the same for the big game. The Mariners will need their big hitters to step up. The timely hitting has to be there. T-Mobile Park will look to close to capacity once again for this epic showdown. The game time is at 6:10 PST. You will not want to miss this.
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