Mariners return from All-Star break with deflating loss to Giants

The first game coming back from the All-Star break should be filled with enthusiasm and excitement for a team in or near a playoff position and coming off a restful few days.

Instead, the Mariners’ return to T-Mobile Park on Friday night to begin maybe the two most important weeks of the season was another display of the lackluster, frustrating baseball that defined the first half of the season.

Decent starting pitching, a shaky bullpen, bad offense and a couple of sloppy mistakes led to the M’s falling 7-0 to the San Francisco Giants before a crowd of 42,595.

The M’s (48-50) lost for the sixth time in seven games after limping their way through Florida before the All-Star break. Bryce Miller was good but not great on the mound. The middle infield pairing of the present and the future of Colt Emerson and Cole Young each made costly errors in the sixth inning. The bullpen had its own issues, highlighted by Nick Davila giving up a grand slam to Willy Adames in the seventh inning that turned a 3-0 game into a 7-0 rout.

And the offense? It was seemingly still on break, managing just two meaningless singles from Josh Naylor and Luke Raley.

In the context of the season, it’s one game, especially in an AL West where everyone is struggling to see the .500 mark. But every game matters between now and Aug. 3 when the trade deadline arrives. These next two weeks define the moves the Mariners will try – need – to make to improve a roster that by all accounts has massively underperformed nearing the 100-game mark, no matter the injuries that have thinned the roster.

Impressions matter, too. The M’s looked lifeless going into the break and getting thumped the first night back by a team that started the day 14 games under .500 is a quick way to irritate the near sellout crowd that showed up expecting to see more fireworks than just the ones postgame.

The M’s hoped Julio Rodríguez would be ready to rejoin the lineup after being out since July 2 with a concussion but his return was delayed until at least Saturday as the team wanted its center fielder to go through one more day of workouts and feel symptom-free before activating him from the concussion injured list.

Getting Rodríguez back – the bat, the glove, the energy, the presence – feels especially important when seemingly everything is a struggle.

Miller pitched well enough to deserve a result, even if he wasn’t his sharpest. Miller (4-4) threw 52/3 innings and struck out six while allowing only two earned runs, those coming when he was tagged for a two-out, two-run homer by Bryce Eldridge in the fifth inning on a splitter that hung belt-high.

But the 12 outs starting with the bottom of the fifth is where it fell apart for the M’s as playing a clean game remained elusive.

Raley led off the bottom of the fifth with just the second hit for the M’s. He was immediately retired when Victor Robles failed to drop a successful bunt, instead pushing it back to Giants starter Landen Roupp with plenty of time to force Raley at second. Robles then attempted to steal second on the next pitch and was easily thrown out by Giants catcher Drew Cavanaugh.

Quick way to kill the chance at a rally.

In the top of the sixth, Heliot Ramos led off with a single, but Miller got a potential double play ball off the bat of Jung Hoo Lee. Josh Naylor made a strong throw to second, but Emerson’s relay back to first for Miller was low and the rookie was charged with an error.

Miller’s night ended after he hit Drew Gilbert with two outs and José A. Ferrer walked Cavanaugh, the No. 9 hitter, to keep the inning going. Young was then unable to handle a chopper from Luis Arraez that allowed Lee to score – the second error of the inning.

The sixth was the precursor for an inning later when Davila loaded the bases on two hits and a hit batter and then watched Adames unload them with a grand slam.

Ultimately, none of that matters when an offense manages six total baserunners, is shut out for the ninth time this season and didn’t see a baserunner reach second base until the ninth inning.