Mariners can’t build on early lead, fall to Phillies 6-5

PHILADELPHIA – Brought in to protect a one-run lead, Seattle Mariners reliever Justin Topa surrendered four consecutive singles to start the eighth inning, with the last two scoring the tying run and the go-ahead runs in a 6-5 loss to the Phillies on Wednesday.

Scoring five runs was good enough for the Mariners to find victory in three of their last four games.

And manager Scott Servais would never gripe about getting only five runs from his team. Given his team’s offensive struggles in the past and the normally reliable pitching staff, it’s something he will take every night.

But when they score five runs in the second inning and get held scoreless over the next seven innings, well, that’s a problem.

Seattle did put the tying run in scoring position in the ninth inning when J.P. Crawford picked up his third hit of the night, smacking a two-out double into right field off Phillies closer Jose Alvarado.

But Julio Rodriguez couldn’t come up with the clutch hit off the hard-throwing lefty, striking out for the fourth time to end the game.

“One-run games on the road are tough to hang on to and win,” Servais said. “But we needed to add on a little more. We put it all together in one inning, but it usually takes more than one inning.”

After scoring five runs in the second, the Mariners failed to capitalize on the few scoring opportunities they generated. They had four baserunners in those final seven innings.

“We didn’t have a lot of chances, quite frankly,” Servais said. “We didn’t create you much traffic. I thought their bullpen guys did a nice job.”

Seattle got a one-out double from Kolten Wong in the fourth and couldn’t score him. Crawford led off the seventh with a single of Seranthony Dominguez to give Seattle’s top of the order a chance. But Rodriguez struck out, Ty France flew out to center and Jarred Kelenic struck out to end the inning.

As for the eighth, Topa hadn’t allowed an earned run in nine appearances this season. Nick Castellanos looped a broken-bat single to left to start the hit parade. Brandon Marsh hit a sharp grounder past a diving Wong to put runners on the corners. J.T. Realmuto tied the game on a hard one-hopper that fooled Wong on a backhand attempt. Alec Bohm put the Phillies ahead with a groundball single through the left side.

“That’s what he does, he creates ground balls when he’s out there,” Servais said. “We didn’t get one at somebody to turn a double play.”

The Mariners got just five innings from starter Logan Gilbert, who seemed to be a target for baseballs. He took a comebacker to the leg off the bat of Edmundo Sosa in the third inning.

“It squared me up pretty good,” Gilbert said. “I feel fine. I’m sure it will swell up tomorrow. It could’ve been worse.

He narrowly missed being hit by a Realmuto line drive up the middle.

And in the fifth inning, he made a protective snare of a 104-mph line drive off the bat of Brandon Marsh.

“Couple of close calls out there, especially that last one,” he said.

Gilbert’s first inning was a little shaky. He walked Bryson Stott, the first batter he faced. With two outs, he fell behind 3-1 to Castellanos and left a fastball down the middle that was turned into a two-run homer.

Down 2-0, the Mariners scored all five of their runs in the second inning against former Mariner Taijuan Walker, who exited after the fourth inning with forearm tightness.

After retiring the first two hitters of the inning with relative ease, Walker ran into some trouble. He walked Cal Raleigh, gave up an infield single to AJ Pollock and walked Wong on four pitches.

It earned him a visit from pitching coach Caleb Cotham.

“After walking Wonger on four straight pitches, I knew coming in he was going trying to get strike one” Crawford said.

He ambushed a 94-mph fastball that stayed in the middle of the plate. The aggressive swing produced a blast to dead center that carried well over the wall for Crawford’s second career grand slam. Per MLB Statcast, it had a 107-mph exit velocity and traveled 420 feet. It was his first homer of the season and it came against his former team.

“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” he said.

The Mariners weren’t finished in the inning.

Rodriguez made it back-to-back homers, sending a solo blast into the seats in deep left-center.

The last time the Mariners had back-to-back homers that included a grand slam was on July 7, 2015, against the Tigers at T-Mobile Park. Austin Jackson hit the grand slam and Franklin Gutierrez followed with a solo homer.

The Phillies picked up a run in the fourth inning. Sosa led off with a single off Gilbert’s shin and later scored on Kyle Schwarber’s single to left field to cut the lead to 5-3.

Castellanos made it a one-run game in the fifth, coming up with a two-out single to score Stott.