Blue Jays rally against Mariners’ bullpen to pull out victory

TORONTO – In the early days of the 2018 season, there was a minor panic about setup man Juan Nicasio and the lack of velocity on his fastball.

Brought in to be the eighth-inning man before closer Edwin Diaz at the not-so-cheap sum of $17 million over two seasons, Nicasio’s fastball was sitting around 92-93 mph in his first few outings, which led to a reasonable amount of legitimate concern.

Nicasio shrugged it off and said it would come back.

Eventually as he predicted, the velocity returned to his fastball and even slider, but with that increased speed has come lapses of command with either pitch, which is a far bigger issue than the once-decreased velocity.

On Wednesday night, Nicasio slogged his way through his worst outing in his brief Mariners tenure, giving up four runs on five straight hits and turning a one-run lead into an eventual 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.

“Juan just had an off night,” manager Scott Servais said. “He didn’t just have much life on the fastball. He left some balls up and they got on him.”

It was a barrage of hard-hit balls from a Blue Jays team wounded and angry from being no-hit the night before.

“We kept them down for a long time in this series,” Servais said. “But we weren’t able to shut the door tonight.”

Brought in to protect a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning. Nicasio served up three straight doubles to Josh Donaldson, Yangervis Solarte and Justin Smoak to allow two runs to score and lose the lead.

Whether it was his slider that seemed to have no quality break or his fastball, which sat at 95 mph and touched 96 mph but looked impossibly straight, none of his pitches could stay out of the middle of the plate or off the barrel of the Blue Jays bats.

“I tried to do my job there and I threw a lot of bad pitches,” Nicasio said. “It’s just a bad game.”

The string of doubles against Nicasio briefly came to an end when Kevin Pillar rocketed a ball into left field. It scored another run to make it 4-2, but Pillar was thrown out at second base. It was the only out that Nicasio would get. Moments later, Russell Martin laced another double into left-center that ended Nicasio’s night.

“He’s just not finishing pitches,” catcher Mike Zunino said. “Obviously, he’s got great stuff. You saw in that last series when he came out and was throwing 96. But it’s just that lack of finish. It can lead you into some trouble and take some break away from the slider and life away from the fastball. When guys have that intent, you can see it on the mound and that makes it play up more. You can’t question the stuff, it’s still really good. This is something he’ll figure out.”

Nicasio hadn’t thrown in three days. Servais thought maybe that affected him, but the veteran right-hander wouldn’t accept that crutch.

“It’s not an excuse,” he said. “Even with two or three days off, I still throw every day. I throw flat ground every day. Days like this happen.”

But three of his last four outings have been suboptimal: Nicasio has pitched a total of 3 1/3 innings, allowing seven runs on 12 hits, including seven doubles and a homer.

“The last two games, my slider has been up in the zone,” he said. “I need to work on it. I need to be sharp with my slider. You can’t only pitch with a fastball.”

Servais went to right-hander Erik Goeddel, who eventually ended the run-scoring carousel, but not before allowing the fourth run of the inning, which also belonged to Nicasio, to score.

Four runs in what is supposed to be a lockdown inning is far from ideal.

But that isn’t the only place where the Mariners were lacking on the night. They went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10 runners on base.

They scored just two runs against Blue Jays starter Jaime Garcia, who wasn’t particularly good on the night. The lefty had minimal command or even control of his pitches as evidenced by five walks and a hit batter in five innings pitched.

“We had some chances earlier in the ballgame to put a little space between us and them,” Servais said. “We didn’t take advantage of some opportunities. We have to score more than two runs. We were on Garcia, but he was sort of effectively wild, but he got through it.”

Besides failure to get hits with runners in scoring position, the Mariners also made a couple of mistakes on the bases, which never helps.

Jean Segura’s RBI double scored Dee Gordon from first base in the first. Mitch Haniger made it 2-0 with run-scoring double in the fourth.

The Mariners got another solid if not lengthy start from Wade LeBlanc. The veteran lefty worked five innings, allowing just one run on four hits with no walks and three strikeouts.

His only run allowed came in the fourth inning with Seattle leading 2-0. Facing leadoff hitter Teoscar Hernandez to start the inning, the normally pinpoint LeBlanc left a two-seam fastball over the middle of the plate. At just 86 mph, Hernandez wasn’t going to miss that kind of gift. He smashed it into the second deck in center field. MLB statcast measured the blast at 440 feet.