Mariners mix messages and emotions in a game three loss in Minnesota

How to process a loss with so much silver lining, even if that means some of the usual dark clouds?

I don’t know how to feel about the 2024 Seattle Mariners.

I don’t know how to feel about today’s loss to the Twins, where they scored three runs to Minnesota’s six.

Before the Twins series, Seattle had won six series in a row. This four game set is only their second of the season with the first being a home series split against Boston, and even though they are now down 2-1 in the series, they can always rally behind LoGi on the mound tomorrow and split this series too.

After all, I’m sure nobody could have easily expected last night’s rollercoaster.

But some things, you generally can expect. Like with George Kirby. Usually, you know you’re getting a guy on the mound who can absolutely paint. If he wants to put a pitch in the strike zone he can and will, amounting to historically low walk rate levels of reliability. He only walked one batter today!

That one walk was against José Miranda in the bottom of the fourth, and you know what I just said about him being a reliable strike thrower? Well, may I present the exception to the rule.

Of course, being able to land pitches in the strike zone, or put it anywhere a pitcher wants it to at whim, doesn’t always amount to a ton of strikeouts. It can, like when Kirby recently struck out twelve Diamondbacks two starts ago. Or it can be more like his last start against Houston, where he only gave up one earned and lasted six, but only struck out three, relying on good old fashioned contact.

Today he didn’t land on the strikeout heavy end of the equation, only striking out four in five innings of work, two looking and two swinging.

And, he mostly managed contact well, only racking up four hits in those five innings. Those four hits, matched with four earned runs. There are those pesky exceptions traveling all over the rules again.

After getting a first pitch fly out from Edouard Julien, Kirby hung a curveball to Carlos Correa, and the old enemy scorched it 104.5 off the bat and 406 ft over the wall.

And then the next batter up, in only two pitches, a slider inside to Trevor Larnach for another 104+ and 400 feet off the bat had the Twins up two on just the two hits.

Kirby bounced back and there would be no more one hit one earned run moments. That inning. After a quick circle around back to the bottom half, now the second, it was again a second batter that battered a hung pitch by kirby.

This time it was after a bit of a battle in that it was a 3-2 count, but when Kirby sent the seventh pitch fastball straight down the pipe, Willi Castro demolished it for the hardest hit ball of the night, 106.9 off the bat, a no-doubter in any ballpark at 432 feet.

George escaped the second without any more damage, and that last earned run on one hit we haven’t discussed was not in fact a home run, but instead a two out Willi Castro triple, scoring José Miranda, on base with the aforementioned singular walk issued by Kirby.

And so I am also not quite sure how to feel about Kirby’s night. He only collected six whiffs on the night, but the line ultimately wasn’t bad, even if he fell one earned run and one inning short of Quality. He gave up some pretty hard contact, and struggled with his command at times, but by now Kirby has earned the benefit of the doubt, that we were seeing an exception.

Still, after such a great streak of so few unearned runs, I hate to have seen the normally furious George go merely chagrined into the night.

And after Kirby left the game the bullpen didn’t alleviate me at all of my conflict. The first up was one thousandth Mariner to put on the uniform and step onto the field, a Kirby of a different color, Kirby Snead pitched a clean 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout. Trent Thornton worked the next clean inning in the bottom of the seventh taking over after Snead, collecting two strikeouts. Cody Bolton also worked an inning for Seattle, the eighth, and he also got two strikeouts. And he also allowed a single and two doubles for Minnesota to add on two more runs, reaching their final total of six, and staying out of reach of Seattle.

I hate that I have gotten so used to how good this bullpen can be, that even when beloved bullpen stalwarts like Tayler Saucedo fall to injury like he did yesterday (get well soon, Sauce!) another can so easily and step up to the game. I hate it because then you also tend to forget that good is not perfect and a couple mistakes in a row can bruise deep.

If the fans of the Seattle Mariners this season have grown accustomed to expecting the pitching to be good, so too can they understandably have grown used to expecting the hitting to be inconsistent, to say the least. Tonight was a somewhat mixed affair in that regard, nowhere near last night’s roller coaster, but not without some fun bumps along the way as they trailed behind the Twins all game.

It isn’t entirely fair to say that none of the Seattle squad has been hitting well throughout, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to win more than they lost so far, but it goes without saying that certain bats in the lineup that should be part of the winning formula have too often been quietly golf clapping while others have taken the reins.

Josh Rojas has been one of those players, riding a hot bat, taking those reins. He had a 2-for-5 night, although twice he did strike out. Even more welcome was a 2-for-3 night from DH Mitch Garver, with one walk, and one of those two hits being a one pitch solo shot off Chris Paddack in the fourth inning.

And most welcome, in my opinion, was a 3-for-5 night from Julio Rodríguez, with no strikeouts. All three of his hits were singles, but every ball he put in play was 99 mph exit velocity or higher. One of those singles, in the seventh, allowed him to be on base for the other time the Mariners would score. It was a Julio one out single, Mitch Haniger working an 0-2 count back to a two out walk, and then Cal Raleigh doing Cal Raleigh things, which I never hate, scoring both runners with a double.

I hate that the Mariners didn’t score more than the Twins, that they won’t be able to win a seventh series in a row. But it is hard to harden my heart at them out-hitting their opponent ten to seven, and committing no errors along the way. Especially when they are still doing very well in their division standings even with today’s loss.

It would be very easy to hate them for yet another double digit team strikeout total of thirteen on the night. But at the same time they were up against a formidable opponent in Chris Paddack who managed ten of those himself. And he alone may have been responsible for the double digit strikeouts, but the Mariners still made him work for it, often working deep counts and getting eight of their hits off of him, and getting him to ninety-nine pitches and having to leave one out into the sixth after a Mitch Garver single and Ty France strikeout. (Mixed emotions!)

I hate the way this game was a loss.

I hate the way it made me cope.

I hate the way we can still even this series.

I hate the way Julio and Garver gave me hope.

I hate the Seattle Mariners.

From their good pitching, when it is bad.

To their bad hitting, when it is good.

I hate them in the spring, and I hate them in the fall.

But most of all I hate the way, I don’t hate the Mariners at all.