It was bad. It was boring. It was a third straight loss.
The Mariners lineup snoozed through a 4-1 loss on Sunday as the Royals completed a sweep in Seattle. The short-side of the Mariners platoons, once again, frankly stunk, sending the minimum-plus-one to the plate over the final five innings.
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Lefty Kris Bubic took the ball for the Royals. He was excellent last year, with a 2.89 FIP in 20 starts, so this wasn’t expected to be an easy task. The Mariners seemed to agree, allowing Bubic to work through seven innings with minimal effort. The Mariners began the day 22nd in baseball with an 86 wRC+ lefties, in what’s been perhaps the most discouraging sign from the early going. The lineup Sunday looked especially suspect, as Cal Raleigh sat out with soreness in his side region.
To their immense credit, the Mariners scratched across the first run of the game in the third inning. Leo Rivas fell behind 1-2 but drew an eight-pitch walk. Julio Rodríguez later singled him over to third, and Josh Naylor plated a run on a fielder’s choice.
That was it. They picked up two singles and a walk the rest of the way.
Luis Castillo got the start, looking to bounce back after getting shelled in Minnesota last week. It’s been a tough go since he went six scoreless in his first outing of the season against the Yankees, with a couple middling starts sandwiched between blowouts. With Emerson Hancock pitching well and Bryce Miller progressing in a rehab stint, there’s been some question about Castillo’s spot on the depth chart.
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He seemed to make a case for sticking around early. He struck out Bobby Witt Jr. in the first inning on three pitches, getting a chase on a slider out of the zone. Then he struck out Vinnie Pasquantino, getting three more swings out of the zone. In the second, he got Carter Jensen to punch out on three straight fastballs, elevating each more than the last until Jensen swung at his eyes.
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Castillo gave up a single to leadoff the third, but quickly got Michael Massey to chase a fastball in for a fourth strikeout. On the next pitch, Jhonny Pereda — making his first start for the Mariners with Cal out — gunned down Isaac Collins trying to steal second.
Things immediately went down hill for Castillo on the second turn through the order. Witt and Pasquantino lead off with hard-hit singles. Castillo then hit Salvador Perez to load the bases with no outs. He walked the next batter to plate a run, got a ground out to plate another, and gave up a sac fly to make the game 3-1.
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This has been the story for Castillo most of the season. He entered the day with a 2.59 FIP on the first trip through a lineup, and a 6.33 FIP on the second.
Castillo settled down with minimum strife in the fifth, but a two-out walk and a sharp double off the wall in the sixth made the game 4-1. He struck out his final batter of the game — his first since the initial pass through the order —to finish six innings with five strikeouts, two walks, six hits, and 11 hard hit balls allowed.
The Mariners are now 16-19. They are still the favorites in the AL West, given nobody else wants to win the division, either. But we’ve seen the flaws of this roster create inconsistency, at the very least. The loss to the Royals is the third time the Mariners have been swept this year, and it’s come after they clawed their way back to .500 at the end of April with back-to-back series wins. It doesn’t get any easier with the 25-10 Braves in town next.
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