Mariners off to slow start

 

The first full week of the major league baseball season hasn’t been kind to the Seattle Mariners.

Thanks to a three-game sweep by the San Francisco Giants, who now have the winningest record in the big leagues, the M’s fall to 3-7. Only the predictably bad Chicago White Sox (2-7) have a worse record.

Yesterday’s 5-4 loss in the Bay Area capsulized the Mariner season so far. Seattle tied the game in the top of the ninth on Randy Arozerana’s two-out single. Giant manager and former Seattle skipper Bob Melvin went against conventional wisdom by intentionally walking the lead run (Cal Raleigh 3-3 with a home run). But Arozerana, who had struckout three times in the game, lashed a single to left field scoring Victor Robles. But alas, the Mariners would leave the bases loaded.

In the bottom of the ninth with a runner on first, Robles made perhaps the best catch of the season. Running at full speed- 113 feet in 6.2 seconds- Robles leaped into the right field stands to snare a foul ball off the bat of Patrick Bailey for the second out. But Robles left arm hit a netting and he crumpled to the ground in obvious pain after the catch.

After the game, Mariner manager Dan Wilson said that all he knew was that it was a shoulder injury. Originally, Luis Matos the runner on first ran to third, but the umpires ruled (and were backed up by replay) that Robles was out of play and placed Matos on second.

It was all academic, as pinch-hitter Wilmer Flores jumped on the first pitch from reliever Gregory Santos to drive in the game’s winning run.

“Obviously an unbelievable catch,’’ said Mariners’ starting pitcher, Bryan Woo.``Vic, he’s a dog, puts his body out in a spot that probably could have been a foul ball, and he could have just let it go, but it’s not who he is.’’

The Mariners stranded 11 base runners in the game, wasting a good pitching effort by Woo. The Bay Area native- born in Oakland and raised in Almeida had only bad inning, the fourth.

The Giants had four runs and four hits in the inning, Mike Yastrzemski, whose 84-year-old Hall-of-Fame grandfather threw out the first pitch at Boston’s home opener on Friday, hit a three-run homer in the inning.

Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez both homered earlier in the game to give the visitors a 2-0 lead, belying the theory that when Raleigh and Rodriguez both homer in a game that means good things for the Mariners.

After splitting their opening series against the Philadelphia-Kansas City-Oakland-Sacramento-Vegas Athletics, Seattle lost two out of three to Detroit. The Tigers rebounded from a three-game pounding from the Los Angeles Dodgers, but Luis Castillo ended the M’s first homestand on the year.

Castillo held the Bengals to two runs and five hits to best Tarik Skubal, the defending AL Cy Young champ and former Seattle University ace, 3-1. Robles homered in that game.

Seattle blew a late lead in a bullpen game Friday night in the Giants’ home opener, losing 10-9. On Saturday, former M Robbie Ray posted a 4-1 victory to go 2-0 with a 2.18 ERA in two starts.

The Mariners return to T-Mobile Park tonight to start a series with the Houston Astros. Seattle has four of its first five series of the year at home with a series next weekend against the Texas Rangers.

While Mariner fans are surely disappointed with the slow start, Rodriguez remains optimistic.

“There ain't nothing to regroup about and nothing to say like, 'Oh, do this better or do this and that,’” Rodríguez told the media after the game. ``We played a really good ballgame. And if you ask me, I think we're in a really good spot ten games in.”

The Mariners send their ace, Logan Gilbert (0-1, 3.00) to the mound tonight against Houston’s Hayden Wesninski.