SEATTLE — On a day where he spent talking about the defensive improvement and run prevention being key to the Mariners' success in the 2022 season, manager Scott Servais then had to endure his team slogging through one of its sloppiest games of the season.
The Mariners committed three errors that led to a total of six unearned runs in a lackluster 9-6 loss to the White Sox.
Seattle lost the three-game series in disappointing and atypical fashion.
“It’s just taking pride in knowing the value of every out,” Servais said in his pregame media session hours before. “Perry Hill has been saying it since he got here, ‘27 outs, no more,’ ” Servais said. “If you do that, you’ll win a lot of games. And I often said, we win a lot of games, but we don’t lose a lot of games. And that’s where you lose them.”
The Mariners lost it with Eugenio Suarez, Curt Casali and reliever Chris Flexen all committing errors that led to those passel of unearned runs.
Perhaps it was a sign when Seattle starter Luis Castillo went from being basically unhittable in the first three innings to unable to finish the sixth inning.
How did Castillo start the game?
First inning:
Elvis Andrus — strikeout swinging
Yoan Moncada — strikeout swinging
Jose Abreu — strikeout swinging
Second inning:
Eloy Jimenez — strikeout looking
Gavin Sheets — strikeout swinging
Andrew Vaughan — strikeout swinging
Third inning:
A.J. Pollock — strikeout swinging
Josh Harrison — ground out to shortstop
Seby Zavala — fly out to right field
The seven strikeouts to start a game set a new Mariners team record, surpassing the previous record of five set by Michael Pineda on July 9, 2011. But it fell short of the MLB record of nine straight to start a game set by Marlins right-hander Pablo Lopez, who was once a Mariners prospect, in 2021.
Castillo’s teammates rewarded his flurry of punchouts with a four-run third inning against White Sox starter Michael Kopech.
Curt Casali worked a leadoff walk and scored from first base on Julio Rodriguez’s one-out double off the wall in deep center. The first of two fielding errors committed by Josh Harrison in the game allowed Ty France to reach and Rodriguez to move to third base.
That set up Mitch Haniger’s sac fly to center field and allowed Suarez to come to the plate with a runner on base.
Kopech got up 0-2 on the first two pitches and then inexplicably left a fastball down the middle of the plate. While Suarez is known to swing and miss at pitches in the strike zone, he wasn’t missing this cookie. He crushed it deep into the upper deck in left field for a two-run homer. His 26th homer of the season gave Seattle a 4-0 lead.
Given how Castillo started the game, it seemed like it would be plenty of run support. But the White Sox got two runs back in the fourth inning after the Mariners had appeared to have ended the inning with a double play.
With one out and Andrus on first base due to a leadoff walk, the Mariners appeared to have turned a difficult 5-4-3 double play on Jose Abreu’s hard ground ball to third base. However, a replay review showed that Abreu had barely beaten the throw to first base.
That lost out came back to sting when Eloy Jimenez ambushed a first-pitch slider that was left over the middle of the plate for a two-run homer. Instead of a 4-0 lead, the Mariners were only up 4-2.
Castillo’s outing fell apart in a sixth inning where he would’ve happily given up his club record to have a few of those strikeouts at his disposal.
A misplayed ball by Suarez at third base on No. 9 hitter Seby Zavala’s routine ground ball started the inning on a bad note.
Andrus followed with a perfectly placed bunt single to put runners on first and second. After Moncada flew out to right field, Abreu snuck a soft ground ball past a diving Adam Frazier to score a run to make it 4-3.
Jimenez kept the inning going with a bouncing ball that somehow stayed fair, just catching the chalk behind third base to score Andrus and tie the game. Gavin Sheets gave the White Sox the lead with a sac fly to right field and Andrew Vaughan ended Castillo’s outing with a line drive double to left that put the White Sox up 6-4.
Penn Murfee eventually ended the inning where all nine hitters in the White Sox lineup came to the plate.
Down two, Seattle picked up a run in the sixth on Ty France’s bases loaded ground out. Suarez hit his second homer of the game — a deep blast into right-center — to tie the game at 6-6 in the seventh.
