Seattle Mariners can’t execute in extras, fall to Marlins on walkoff hit

MIAMI – It doesn’t take a new metric devised by genius analysts to say its suboptimal. And while they never dealt with the scenario in their days, you can almost hear the crustiest of the old managers scolding the failure to execute.

But in the new era of extra-innings baseball that features the automatic runner at second to start innings after the ninth, failing to score as the visiting team in the top of the 10th or any inning makes winning pretty difficult.

So when the Mariners failed to score a run in the top of the 10th on Tuesday night at loanDepot Park, thanks to a costly baserunning mistake, the Marlins’ 6-5 walkoff victory seemed inevitable.

Against a good team like the Marlins, failing to score in the 10th isn’t ideal.

Wait, a good team like the Marlins?

Indeed, these aren’t the Marlins you might remember or come to mind upon hearing their name. Miami is the hottest team in baseball over the last six weeks. Since June 1, the Marlins are now 24-8. By comparison, the Mariners are 15-16.

With all of the Mariners’ leverage relievers used to get them to the 10th, and manager Dan Wilson having no interest in pushing any of them beyond one inning of work, the Mariners gave the ball to right-hander Michael Rucker to start the bottom of the 10th with Xavier Edwards on second and asked him to keep the Marlins from scoring.

He couldn’t. Miami executed in a way that Seattle could not.

Heriberto Hernandez led off the inning with a deep lineout to right field that allowed Edwards to tag up and advance to third. With the winning run at third, Rucker walked Esteury Ruiz. The Mariners could’ve intentionally walked Jakob Marsee to load the bases, particularly after Ruiz stole second, giving them a force play at home. But it didn’t matter when Marsee, who came into the game hitting .192, hit a deep fly ball off the wall in right field for a walkoff hit.

“Tough, tough way to start the road trip,” Wilson said.

The Marlins’ execution in the bottom of the 10th stood out in stark contrast to the Mariners’ in the top of the inning.

With Dom Canzone and his ailing right hamstring slated to be the automatic runner in the 10th, Wilson went to his bench and brought in Weston Wilson to pinch-run for Canzone.

The thinking was logical. But when Cal Raleigh led off the inning with a crisp ground ball to shortstop, Weston Wilson inexplicably broke for third base. Marlins shortstop Otto Lopez looked almost surprised to see the runner trying to go third. He fielded the grounder and flipped the ball to third baseman Javier Sanoja, who made the easy tag for a gift of an out.

“Typically the ball to your right like that, you kind of have to freeze,” Wilson said. “He might have read chopper on it and it was kind of chopped, but the (turf) infield is pretty quick. On that one, safe than sorry because you’re in scoring position.”

With Raleigh on first, Josh Naylor flew out to center and pinch-hitter Mitch Garver grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.

“It’s really difficult,” Wilson said of not scoring. “You want to capitalize and get that run across and force them to score.”

While the manager lauded the fight in his team and their comeback from a 4-0 deficit, there wasn’t much solace in that for the players.

“A loss is a loss,” Raleigh said. “Nobody likes to lose. We fought and clawed to get back in it, but you don’t want to get yourself in those holes in the first place. You want to be able to keep leads when you have them. I don’t think anyone is taking it as a moral victory.”

The beginning and end was frustrating for the Mariners. They got an uneven start from Bryan Woo, who still doesn’t look completely comfortable pitching away from T-Mobile Park. They also looked listless at the plate early in the game, struggling to get runners on base and then failing to get them in once they started generating traffic.

Woo worked to get through five innings, giving up four runs (three earned) on nine hits with a walk and five strikeouts. He never worked a clean inning and only had two innings – the first and fifth – where he didn’t give up a run.

“They were aggressive,” Woo said. “I knew they were going to be aggressive. They hit a lot of early count pitches, spit on a lot of good breaking balls below the zone.”

Seattle managed to rally from the 4-0 deficit and took a brief 5-4 lead in the top of the eighth.

After failing to get a runner on base until the fourth inning against Marlins starter Max Meyer, the Mariners picked up a pair of runs off the recently elected All-Star starting pitcher in the fifth. Raleigh doubled to right field and later scored on Luke Raley’s sacrifice lineout to right. Cole Young followed with his 10th homer of the season – a solo blast to right – to cut the lead to 4-2.

The Mariners probably should’ve taken the lead in the sixth. They loaded the bases off Meyer to start the inning. With three chances at the bases loaded, they couldn’t come through. Canzone’s ground ball to first was turned into a force play at home, Raleigh struck out swinging and Naylor hit into an inning-ending force play at second.

“We’ve got to find a way to get at least one there,” Raleigh said. “We need to do a better job with runners in scoring position.”

The Mariners got the hits with runners in scoring position in the eighth.

Raleigh won a nine-pitch battle with reliever Calvin Faucher, lining a double off the wall to score J.P. Crawford from second. With Randy Arozarena at third base, Josh Naylor singled through the drawn-in infield to tie the game. The Mariners would take a brief lead when Faucher yanked a breaking ball to Victor Robles into the other batter’s box for a wild pitch, allowing Naylor to race home with the go-ahead run.

The Mariners held the lead for about five minutes. Gabe Speier got the ball for the bottom of the inning and struggled. He fell behind 3-1 to the first batter he faced – pinch hitter Herriberto Hernandez. Not wanting to issue a leadoff walk, Speier fired a fastball that Hernandez deposited deep into the left-field seats for game-tying homer.