Frustrating night in Cleveland as Mariners lose 8-0

Doug Eddings commits crimes against the strike zone, Mariners bats go quiet again

On the bad side: the Mariners lost this game, 8-0. On the good side: this is a reasonably easy loss to flush away, given the utter inconsistency of home plate umpire Doug Edding’s strike zone, which resulted in the Mariners losing their shortstop and manager halfway through the game. It’s also easier to swallow given the Mariners were starting their number five starter Bryan Woo—who, despite some lofty praise he’s received lately, is still a young pitcher struggling to string together consistent appearances where he goes deep into games, and very much this team’s number five pitcher—while Cleveland had their ace, Tanner Bibee, on the mound. That still doesn’t make the actual experience of the game, where the Mariners reverted to their high-strikeout ways , so let’s sum things up quickly and get you back to your summer evening.

Bryan Woo looked a little rusty out of the gate, missing well up and out to his first batter and issuing a walk to open the game, breaking a string of 86 straight batters faced without a walk. Woo had a solid plan against the Guardians, starting on the plate and then gradually expanding the zone to try to induce chases and weak contact, but those contact-happy Guardians were able to make contact anyway, fouling off ball after ball. José Ramírez worked a nine-pitch at-bat against Woo, doing his best Vladimir Guerrero Sr. impression and getting to bad ball after bad ball, that ended with Woo making a mistake on the plate with a sinker that Ramírez roped for a single, putting runners on at first and third with just one out. Josh Naylor then worked another deep at-bat against Woo, falling into an 0-2 count early but getting a fastball at the top of the plate he was able to wrestle into right field to give the Guardians a 1-0 lead. It took Woo 30 pitches to clear the first inning, an enormous amount considering how tight Woo’s pitch counts have been this year.

The second inning started out much better, with Woo getting two quick outs, but this time the other Naylor brother, Bo, gave Woo a hard time, battling Woo for seven pitches ending with a top-rail fastball the equally-strong Bo was able to muscle deep into the outfield for a double. Steven Kwan then turned on an inside fastball that traveled just 358 feet at a mere 97 mph but managed to make it through the swampy air in Cleveland for a two-run home run and a 3-0 lead for the Guardians. I’ll let Harry from Resident Alien express how I feel about that.

Let us now be optimistic: these kinds of outings are probably good for Woo. You don’t learn a lot from being dominant; you learn from getting your teeth kicked in every so often, and tonight’s start can safely be filed under “learning experience.” Woo settled in after, and made it through his next two innings unscathed.

Unfortunately, that was the end of Woo’s night on a sultry night in Cleveland, with the Mariners capping him at 65 pitches. That left the rest of the game in the hands of the bullpen, who allowed another five runs to score—three off Mike Baumann, who should have been out of the inning before the majority of that damage occurred, so thanks again, Doug Eddings; one off Cody Bolton; and one big-boy Josh Naylor bomb, his second of the night, off Eduard Bazardo, on for mop-up duty in the seventh. Today’s Sun Hat award goes to Bazardo, who saved the rest of the bullpen by working two innings, just giving up the one home run and striking out three.

Meanwhile, the Mariners only managed to scrape one hit against Bibee—a sharply-hit single from Julio Rodríguez—until the fourth, when Josh Rojas opened the inning with a double. Unfortunately, the next batter, Julio, was the victim of some bad BABIP luck, scalding a ball (103.2 mph) but directly at José Ramírez, and then Cal Raleigh struck out for the second out. Ty France walked, bringing up hometown kid Luke Raley, who couldn’t come up with a big hit, striking out. The question for most of the game seemed to be not if Bibee would eclipse his career high in strikeouts (11), but when, as he had nine through four.

The answer came in the sixth inning, when Julio couldn’t catch up with a 96 mph fastball in the middle of the plate, going down swinging for the Mariners’ 12th strikeout of the night. I’m not sure what Bibee has that makes him so tough for hitters to pick up, because it sure looks like he throws a lot of fastballs on the plate, but it certainly had the Mariners wrong-footed all night. Of course, home plate umpire Doug Eddings should probably get an assist credited, as his strike zone was all over the place, leading to an extremely angry J.P. Crawford getting tossed—along with his manager, who really had no chance to save his shortstop as Eddings tossed him immediately, not that that stopped Scott from unloading on Eddings for a bit—in the fifth inning. Let’s examine the tape to see if J.P. has a case:

I wonder what it would be like to be so bad at one’s job with literally zero repercussions, ever.

Scott Barlow came on in the seventh and posted a clean inning despite walking Luke Raley (3.7% walk rate on the season) thanks to Mitch Haniger grounding into a double play, because Mitch understands some nights you just need to pack it in quickly and regroup for tomorrow. Hunter Gaddis also posted a clean eighth inning, although again with some help from Doug Eddings:

The Guardians then brought on Emmanuel Clase to close out the game, because that 8-0 lead was really in doubt, I guess. I hope tomorrow’s game is close and he’s not available, because that just feels like ridiculous hubris to me. Luis Castillo takes the ball tomorrow, and hopefully the Mariners come back rightfully mad about tonight’s game on a multitude of fronts.