Mariners swept by Rays to close miserable homestand
A weekend designed to highlight some of the franchise’s best over the past 50 years instead served to illuminate one of the worst stretches of offense in Mariners history.
And given this franchise’s paper-thin résumé, you have to be awfully bad to be included in that really bad club.
A listless showing from a punchless lineup gave way to another hopeless finish Sunday afternoon, as the Mariners were swept by the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1, a dismal conclusion to what the franchise had billed as one of the most celebratory weekends in club history.
“Difficult day. Difficult series,” manager Dan Wilson said.
The Mariners (56-63) fell to a season-worst seven games under .500 after scoring a mere four runs in the three games against the Rays (71-46).
The M’s have lost four in a row, and five of six, to wrap up a 3-6 home stand. They are 9-18 in their last 27 games, and their playoff chances have plummeted from 87.5% on July 6 to 30.2% on Sunday, via FanGraphs’ projections.
Through 119 games, the Mariners have scored 462 runs, dead last among 30 MLB teams. Their 3.88 runs per game that would rank as the 10th-lowest total in the franchise’s history (over a full season), and their .683 OPS would also rank among the 10 worst.
“It’s not for lack of work,” Wilson said. “These guys are putting in the work. They’re putting in the time that’s necessary, and they’re coming out prepared. And it’s just – we’re just not seeing it on the field.”
And just when you think things have reached a nadir for these Mariners, the road ahead is suddenly as daunting as ever. On Tuesday, the Mariners begin a nine-game trip against the Yankees in the Bronx, the first of 15 straight games against playoff teams.
The Mariners have an off day Monday. The last time they had an off day leading into a road trip, on July 23, the front office made a coaching change, dismissing assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes.
Wilson has shuffled his lineup a fair amount the past week. Cole Young was hitting second again on Sunday, and Julio Rodríguez, Josh Naylor and Cal Raleigh hit fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively. Those moves have done little to generate offense.
Wilson was ejected twice on this home stand, and that didn’t seem to do anything to provide a spark, either.
President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander are both scheduled to join the team on this trip to New York.
Could another shakeup be in the works?
What else is left to do to at this point?
“It’s a very frustrating time, no question,” Wilson said. “But we’ve got to keep pushing. We’ve got to find a way, and that’s really what it boils down to, is finding a way.”
There was fleeting promise early Sunday.
The Mariners’ first batter of the game, Taylor Ward, hit a leadoff triple off the top of the wall in the deepest part of the park, then scored on the next pitch when Cole Young laced a sharp single to right field. That gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead.
They wouldn’t score again, and they never got particularly close against Rays left-hander Ian Seymour, who allowed just three more hits to complete six strong innings.
Ward’s triple was the only extra-base hit of the game for the Mariners, who had just four singles after the first inning – a carbon-copy game from so many of their recent performances.
“We’re frustrated,” said starter Emerson Hancock, who took the loss Sunday after allowing two runs in 4.2 innings. “You want to go out there and you want to get the results, but I do think it’s, like, what we believe in, what we talk about, is it is still in front of us. Guys are working as hard as they possibly can. You’re putting in the work. This is just one of those games, man. It’s going to test you. It’s going to grind you out.
“But the only thing you can do is show up day in and day out, do everything you can to go out there and help the team in any way that you can, and you move on from this one.”