Mariners suffer tough loss to Giants after a wild, back-and-forth game

SAN FRANCISCO – On a day the Seattle Mariners knew they needed something wild to happen, they ended up needing a little bit of everything from just about everyone on the roster.

It was, indeed, a wildly entertaining afternoon of baseball.

It just wasn’t quite enough.

Willy Adames sent a soft single to shallow right field to drive in two runs in the bottom of the 11th inning, giving the San Francisco Giants a 10-9 walkoff victory over the Mariners at Oracle Park on Friday afternoon.

The game was a 4-hour, 3-minute marathon on a beautiful spring afternoon in the San Francisco Bay, featuring a combined 32 hits, 19 runs, 15 pitching changes – and one missed call in the 11th inning that loomed large in the winning run.

“Crazy game,” Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh said. “Baseball is a beautiful, amazing sport. But it can also be (difficult) sometimes.”

The Mariners, in their first road game of the season, had taken a 9-8 lead in the top of the 11th when Raleigh slid home to score on a wild pitch from Spencer Givens.

The Mariners (3-5) were one out away from an unlikely victory in the 11th when Carlos Vargas, the last available reliever out of the Mariners’ bullpen, struck out LaMonte Wade Jr. looking at a slider for strike three for the second out of the bottom of the 11th.

But Adames sent the first pitch he saw from Vargas to right field, and Mariners right fielder Victor Robles had trouble getting the ball out of his glove, giving Tyler Fitzgerald just enough time to round third and slide home for the winning run.

Fitzgerald, the Giants’ No. 9 hitter, had reached base after a ball-four call from plate umpire Sean Barber on a slider that Statcast metrics showed touched the outer edge of the strike zone.

Barber didn’t see it that way, extending a frustrating afternoon of ball/strike calls from both dugouts.

Raleigh was irked by what he thought should have been strike-three pitch from Vargas.

“He was calling those strikes all day,” Raleigh said.

It’s been an exhausting week for the Mariners’ bullpen, which had to cover eight-plus innings on Monday after Emerson Hancock’s truncated start against Detroit and then nearly eight more Friday in the Mariners’ first extra-innings game of the season.

The team will almost certainly have to make a roster move this weekend to reinforce the bullpen.

The larger concern has to be how the Mariners will handle the No. 5 spot in the rotation as George Kirby (shoulder fatigue) builds up strength in extended spring training in Arizona. Kirby will likely need at least several more weeks.

Hancock was demoted to Triple-A Tacoma on Tuesday.

Luis F. Castillo, a 30-year-old journeyman who pitched in Japan the past two seasons, needed 68 pitches to get through three innings Friday in the first MLB start of his career. He surrendered three runs on six hits.

“I think I could have done a little better,” Castillo said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “But once I look back and take into account some of the contact that was made, I think I didn’t do as bad as I feel.”

M’s manager Dan Wilson then used all eight relievers he had available. The Giants took a 6-4 lead in the fifth inning off Mariners relievers Tayler Saucedo (two earned runs), Collin Snider (one) and Eduard Bazardo (three).

But Gabe Speier, Trent Thornton, Gregory Santos and Andrés Muñoz threw four consecutive scoreless innings from there.

“Lot of bullpen use with extra innings. The same thing on their side too,” Raleigh said. “It was a weird day.”

On paper, this did not look like a favorable matchup for the Mariners, with Luis F. Castillo making his MLB starting debut opposite Justin Verlander, the 42-year-old former AL West foe and future Hall of Famer.

But the Mariners offense (9 runs, 15 hits, 7 walks) had its most productive day of the young season to keep things interesting.

Julio Rodriguez homered on the first pitch he saw from Verlander, and the Mariners managed to take an 8-6 lead in the sixth inning.

Jorge Polanco, in his first game back from the paternity list after the birth of his fourth son earlier this week, hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning off Lou Trivino. Polanco had three hits and drove in four runs.

Rodriguez reached base four times and had four batted balls of 102 mph or more, including an 111.1-mph single in the sixth inning. His 108.1-mph home run to right field was just the 78th opposite-field home run hit in the 25-year history of Oracle Park.

The Mariners manged to chase Verlander in the third inning. Raleigh fouled off seven straight pitches from Verlander before drawing a walk in that third inning.

Verlander’s final line: 2.1 innings. 5 hits, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K’s.

“We had a good offensive day,” Raleigh said. “I thought there were a lot of productive at-bats today, with some walks, moving runners over, things like that that don’t always show up in the boxscore.”

Mitch Garver was the only player on the Mariners’ 26-man roster who did not appear in the game.

“Dog fight all the way to the end,” Wilson said. “Can’t say enough about the effort that our guys put forward today. Behind a lot and kept finding ways to get back into it. A really tough one to swallow.”