What's next for Seattle Mariners after tough Game 1 loss

SEATTLE – As the Seattle Mariners stormed through September to capture their first American League West title in 24 years, they did so on the backs on a deep, fearsome and red-hot lineup.

The Mariners’ Game 1 loss was about one thing

The Mariners were baseball’s best offense over the final month, averaging an MLB-best 5.6 runs per game and blasting an MLB-high 43 home runs during a scorching September run.

But after a five-day break, Seattle’s bats came out cold to begin October.

The Mariners mustered just six hits in a 3-2, 11-inning loss to the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the AL Division Series on Saturday night.

Julio Rodríguez went 3 for 5 and drove in both runs, launching a 413-foot solo homer in the fourth inning and then connecting for an RBI single in the sixth. MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh also went 3 for 5.

But as for the rest of Seattle’s lineup? An unsightly 0 for 28, with just two walks and seven strikeouts.

“We were able to get some traffic in a couple of different innings, but just not able to convert as much as we would have wanted to tonight,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “But I thought we had some good at-bats. … And that’s how we run our offense is grind out some at-bats.

“Just weren’t able to get enough back to back to kind of put up the damage that we wanted to put up.”

Seattle’s struggles at the plate in Game 1 came on a night when Detroit pieced together four innings from rookie Troy Melton and seven innings from seven relievers.

The Mariners will face a much more difficult pitching matchup in Game 2 on Sunday night, when the Tigers will send out lefty ace Tarik Skubal – who is widely expected to win his second consecutive AL Cy Young Award.

Skubal led the majors in both ERA (2.21) and WHIP (0.89) this season, while also ranking second in strikeouts (241). The 28-year-old Seattle U product also had a masterful playoff performance Tuesday, tying a Tigers postseason franchise record with 14 strikeouts over 7 2/3 innings in Detroit’s wild card opener against the Cleveland Guardians.

The good news for the M’s? They fared well in their two matchups against Skubal this season.

On April 2, after losing the first two games of an early-season series at T-Mobile Park, the Mariners tagged Skubal for three runs in 5 2/3 innings en route to a 3-2 win.

And on July 11, after getting swept by the New York Yankees in the Bronx, the M’s rebounded by scoring four runs in five innings off Skubal on their way to a 12-3 victory.

The caveat is that two of those seven runs the Mariners scored off Skubal came on a solo homer by Dylan Moore and an RBI triple by Donovan Solano. Neither of those two players, of course, are still on Seattle’s roster.

Even so, the M’s can still draw some confidence from those two games. Twice, they faced Skubal on the heels of a multi-game losing skid. And both times, they bounced back to beat the dominant lefty ace.

They’ll need to do so a third time to avoid falling into an 0-2 series hole.

“One of our strengths is bouncing back, and we have to do that,” Wilson said. “Skubal is a guy, obviously, that we have seen a couple of times this year. He threw the ball well in Cleveland, and we’ve got to come out tomorrow and come right back at him and bounce back.

“And our guys are good at that. That’s what they do, and I think we’ll be ready.”

What’s next for Seattle Mariners after tough Game 1 loss

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