BALTIMORE — As he walked off the mound, disgusted at himself over yet another outing that featured one game-changing inning and five innings of work that were below his standard, the built-up frustration inside Robbie Ray was released.
The veteran lefty fired his glove down the stairs as he neared the third-base dugout at Camden Yards after finishing his fifth and final inning of work.
In another inefficient, pitch-filled outing, Ray failed to meet his two basic criteria for a successful start: Pitching deep into the game and giving his team a chance to win.
He provided neither Wednesday.
And it would only get worse.
Ray’s replacement, Sergio Romo, allowed three homers and five runs in the sixth inning in what would eventually be a 9-2 trouncing by the Baltimore Orioles.
The Mariners, who rolled to a 10-0 win Tuesday, went from bully to bullied in 24 hours.
Romo gave up back-to-back homers to Ryan Mountcastle and Ramon Urias and served up a three-run homer to Trey Mancini in a five-run sixth inning that he couldn’t finish.
After getting at least six innings and two runs or fewer from their starting pitchers in the last four games, Ray couldn’t continue the run of success.
As manager Scott Servais has said often, and after each of previous four games, “it starts with starting pitching.”
But for just the second time this season, Ray didn’t make it into the sixth inning of a game.
He pitched just five innings, allowing four runs on six hits with three walks and six strikeouts on 89 pitches. He fell to 4-6 while his ERA ballooned to 4.93. The Mariners have a 5-6 record in his 11 starts.
This isn’t what the Mariners had in mind when they signed Ray to a 5-year, $115 million contract this offseason to lead their rotation. While it was illogical to think that Ray would reproduce a season similar to 2021 where he went 13-7 with a 2.84 ERA with 248 strikeouts in 103 1/3 innings and was named the American League Cy Young Award winner, the Mariners did expect for something more than replacement-level production.
Ray has yet to give the Mariners an outing where he hasn’t allowed at least one run. His best outing came in the season opener in Minnesota where he allowed one run on three hits in seven innings. Since, he’s allowed at least two runs in his last 10 starts and four-plus runs in four of the 11 outings.
Ray has been plagued by one costly inning in eight of his outings. That inning came early vs. the Orioles.
In the second inning, he allowed a leadoff double to Anthony Santander and walked Mountcastle. After striking out Ramon Urias, Ray made a costly mistake to veteran Rougned Odor.
A first-pitch slider stayed on the inner-half of the plate to the ultra-aggressive Odor, who ambushed the pitch, yanking it over the wall in right field for a three-run homer.
A three-run deficit didn’t guarantee defeat.
The Mariners picked up a run on the fourth inning when J.P. Crawford led off with a solo homer to deep right-center off Orioles starter Kyle Bradish. Seattle cut the lead to 3-2 in the fifth inning when Taylor Trammell led off with a double and later scored on Julio Rodriguez’s high bouncing groundball to shortstop that cut it to 3-2.
But Ray couldn’t keep come back with a shutdown inning. He allowed a deep two-out double off the left field wall to Mancini, which missed being a homer by inches. Austin Hays was able to push a groundball single past the diving attempts of Crawford and Adam Frazier to make it 4-2.
Down two runs going into the sixth inning, Servais turned to Romo, who has been one of the Marines’ most consistent relievers this season. But the veteran right-hander didn’t have great command with his slider. It meant going to his 85-mph sinker more than usual. Mountcastle won nine-pitch battle, slamming a sinker over the deep wall in left field. Urias hammered an 0-1 slider that hung in the middle of the plate over the wall in left. After a two-out double from Cedric Mullins, Mancini hammered a 3-2 slider up in the zone into the Orioles bullpen.
