ARLINGTON, Texas — Perhaps the best thing to say about the Mariners and their losses of late is that they are lacking in late-inning failure and walk-off heartbreak.
Like so many of their defeats dating back to the gutting of their starting pitching staff due to injury, the Mariners fell behind by a significant deficit early, making a comeback unlikely.
That it happened to lefty James Paxton, who delivered a second consecutive less-than-stellar performance, is concerning, frustrating and disappointing for the Mariners. Given his talent and early performances, Paxton’s starts represent the Mariners’ best chance at victory regardless of opponent.
Instead, he slogged through his worst outing of the season, and didn’t make it out of the fourth inning while being charged with seven runs in a 10-4 drubbing by the Rangers.
The Mariners fell to 33-36 and 13-23 on the road. Of their last 13 losses, only three have been by three runs or less.
In sauna-like conditions at Globe Life Park, with temperature on the field around 100 degrees with high humidity on Friday night, Paxton seemed to wilt in the conditions, falling apart in a five-run third inning.
With the velocity on his fastball down just a tick and his command not very sharp, Paxton couldn’t find success. Pitches that were borderline on the edges of the plate were called balls and when Paxton was forced to bring the ball over the plate, he left pitches right down the middle.
The game-changing moment for Paxton came with one out in the third inning. He walked Delino DeShields and Shin-Soo Choo back-to-back. It was sequence he wouldn’t recover from. Elvis Andrus followed with a double into left, reaching out and driving a low curveball for a line drive to tie the game at 1.
Paxton couldn’t make the pitch to stop the bleeding. After getting up 0-2 on Beltre, he left a 96-mph fastball over the middle of the plate that Adrian Beltre drove into right for a two-run single and a 3-1 lead.
A strikeout of Carlos Gomez momentarily slowed the Rangers’ rally. Rougned Odor doubled and Jonathan Lucroy pulled a ground ball just past Taylor Motter at shortstop to make it 5-1.
When Paxton finally retired Mike Napoli with a fly ball to right, the Rangers had scored five runs on four hits and two walks and Paxton had thrown a pitch-count crushing 40 pitches.
To his credit, Paxton tried to gut out some more innings for his team when it clearly wasn’t happening for him on the mound. But he didn’t make it out the fourth.
He gave up a leadoff homer to No. 9 hitter Robinson Chirinos on another pitch over the middle of the plate and a single DeShields. He retired the next two batters but was lifted with his pitch count at 91.
Tony Zych replaced him and allowed an inherited run to score to make it 7-1.
He started off slowly, walking Ben Gamel to start the game. Gamel stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Robinson Cano’s ground ball to first base. But he didn’t allow a hit until two outs in the fifth inning
The game turned into a rout in the sixth. Seattle picked up its second run on a Nelson Cruz RBI single to end his Ross’ night. But in the bottom half of the frame, Zac Curtis served up a three-run homer to Carlos Gomez, who ambushed a first-pitch change-up.
Thursday Twins 6, M’s 2
MINNEAPOLIS — Ariel Miranda’s understanding of the English language has progressed at a rapid rate, to the point where the Cuban native will sometimes respond in his second language.
So after trying to explain all that went wrong in his clunker of a start in the Mariners’ 6-2 loss to the Twins on Thursday afternoon, it was mentioned to him that it seemed to be “just one of those days.”
Miranda was rocked for five runs in the first inning and Seattle’s potent offense mustered little against talented Twins pitching prospect Jose Berrios in a frustrating end to the four-game series. Seattle fell to 33-35 on the season.
