ARLINGTON, Texas \u2013 In the quiet of the visitors\u2019 clubhouse at Globe Life Field, following the Mariners\u2019 3-2 loss to the Rangers, Luke Raley sat staring into his locker, reliving the top of the ninth inning. His face and eyes were red with emotion.<\/p>\n
He knew he would be asked about his decision not to go for second on a leadoff hit down the third-base line. He didn\u2019t make an excuse or hide from what really happened.<\/p>\n
He stood up and said: \u201cI missed first base. It\u2019s that plain and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
Always hustling on even a routine out, he was thinking double off the bat when he saw the hard ground ball off Rangers reliever Jakob Junis get through the infield and head into foul territory. With the Mariners trailing by a run, a leadoff double in the top of the ninth would be an ideal start to a rally.<\/p>\n
But about halfway between first base and second base, he stopped and retreated to first diving into the bag.<\/p>\n
It had nothing to do with the ball bouncing right to Wyatt Langford, who quickly fired it toward second base albeit awkwardly and well off-target.<\/p>\n
Raley didn\u2019t want to be called out for missing first base. He didn\u2019t want one mistake to become two.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just gonna keep going, but it hit me as I was going, like, \u2018what if anyone saw it,\u201d he said. \u2018I know playing first base last year, I was always looking for that. I was just trying to make too tight of a turn. I knew I had to go and try to get in scoring position. But realization hit me, if someone saw it, it would be better for me being on first base than not on base at all. Just a stupid mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raley still got to second when J.P. Crawford followed with a single to center. The Mariners had the tying run on second and the go ahead run on first with no outs. But they never advanced beyond that station. Dom Canzone hit a flyball to left field that wasn\u2019t deep enough for Raley to tag up on. Cole Young followed with a fly ball to center that always wasn\u2019t enough for Raley to try and score on. A groundball or fly ball to right field would\u2019ve done the job. The Mariners couldn\u2019t get a hit or make a productive out. The game ended when catcher Kyle Higashioka hustled to grab Brendan Donovan\u2019s swinging bunt, firing to first to just get the final out.<\/p>\n
But Raley continued to blame himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat shouldn\u2019t have been the situation,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I hit first base, I believe I get to second relatively easily, and J.P.\u2019s ball probably scores me, and if it doesn\u2019t, I\u2019m on third base with Dom and Cole coming and both of their balls are deep enough for a sac fly. It\u2019s unfortunate. I don\u2019t even know what to say. It just can\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it did.<\/p>\n
Still, Raley shouldn\u2019t shoulder all the blame for the Mariners\u2019 fourth straight loss, and sixth in their last season games.<\/p>\n
The Mariners still only had two runs over the first eight innings, a night after scoring one run. Seattle finished the game 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded eight runners on base.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs opposed to last night, where we weren\u2019t able to get traffic tonight, we got some traffic out there,\u201d manager Dan Wilson said. \u201cWe were able to work a couple walks and get a couple base hits, but not able to get the significant runs across tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a persistent problem early in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we get a little anxious and sometimes we try to do too much in those situations,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
The runs need to come sooner rather than later. The Mariners are continuing to squander strong pitching outings at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
George Kirby gave the Mariners a quality start, working eight innings, allowing three runs on six hits with no walks and three strikeouts. It\u2019s the deepest any Mariners starter has gone this season.<\/p>\n
Of the eight innings pitched, Kirby held the Rangers scoreless in seven of them, taking advantage of their aggressive approach and willingness to swing early in the counts for some quick outs and efficient innings.<\/p>\n
Kirby pitched with a 1-0 lead that was provided before even taking the mound. Donovan hammered Nathan Eovaldi\u2019s first pitch of the game \u2013 a 95-mph fastball out over the plate \u2013 into the seats in right field for his second leadoff homer of the season and fifth of his career.<\/p>\n
Unlike the previous night\u2019s game, the Mariners didn\u2019t allow a first-inning solo homer to be their only offense for the game. Nope, they showed improvement, scoring one more run on the night instead.<\/p>\n
In the fifth inning, they made it a 2-0 lead. With Young on second, Cal Raleigh dumped a single to right-center off Eovaldi for some insurance.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, Kirby\u2019s one bad inning of his outing came in the bottom of the fifth. Joc Pederson reached on an infield single and moved to second on Donovan\u2019s throwing error on the play. He scored moments later on Evan Carter\u2019s single to right-center. An irritated Kirby still had the lead, but it was clear he was bothered by giving up the run. His ire would only grow when he misplaced a sinker to Kyle Higashioka two pitches later. The mistake was turned into a two-run homer to left.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just the one homer,\u201d Kirby said. \u201cIt was 98 to his hands and he cheated to it. It is what it is. I was pissed. But what I\u2019m trying to do is just stay in control and not let those things bother me, and kind of just keep going and flush it. Take a breath, have a plan, and then go back in control.\u201d Kirby did that. He retired the next 11 hitters in a row. The Mariners didn\u2019t have to use another pitcher on the night, though they would\u2019ve had tied the game in the ninth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ARLINGTON, Texas \u2013 In the quiet of the visitors\u2019 clubhouse at Globe Life Field, following the Mariners\u2019 3-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-669623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116367310119198360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}