Mariners’ dreadful start continues as Rangers finish off sweep

ARLINGTON, Texas — It’s not just the Mariners’ losing record here in the first 13 games of the season, which dropped to 4-9 following Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to the Rangers, that’s an issue.

To be certain, it’s an unexpected and abysmal start to a highly-anticipated season where success was predicted following last season’s postseason run.

But it’s how the Mariners have earned that record that is at times vexing, other times galling and mostly just disappointing. Save for the pitching, which has been outstanding to solid since opening day, the other aspects of the team needed for overall success — the offense, defense and baserunning — have been lacking if not absent.

The Mariners’ offense has returned to being a strikeout-laden, nonhit-producing mess. When the Mariners do get base runners, they are often stranded. The defense has made costly errors at times while also failing to make plays that are necessary to win games. The Mariners have given away too many free bases and free outs.

Seattle lived this lifestyle for so many seasons and appears to be mired in it again.

“Tough way to end the road trip,” manager Dan Wilson said. “Just a tough road trip.”

Indeed, the Mariners dropped the final five games of the six-game road trip and have lost seven of their last eight. They were shut out for the second time on the trip and for the third time this season. They scored a total of three runs while being swept in the three-game series at Globe Life Field.

“Offensively, again, just not much going on,” Wilson said. “We were able to get a little bit of traffic, but we weren’t able to move it along. Just not enough consistency on the offensive side.”

In the search for positives, they can’t lose on Thursday. They have a much-needed day off from games before opening a four-game series vs. the Astros starting on Friday night at T-Mobile Park.

“Tomorrow is a chance for us to clear our mind a little bit and then get back after it at home on Friday,” Wilson said. “We’re looking forward to getting back home in front of the home folks at T-Mobile.”

It’s not too late to say “It’s still early.” But it’s also not something the Mariners want to say about their struggles.

“It’s frustrating,” starter Bryan Woo said. “Losing games is never fun, especially when they’re in bunches. But you got to find a way out of it. There’s no pointing fingers. As a group, we’ve got to come together and figure it out. Luckily, it’s April and not September, but we still need to have some urgency.”

The pitching duel between Woo and lefty MacKenzie Gore went as expected for the first four innings with neither team mustering a scoring threat. Both starters’ outings would end after five innings of work for different reasons.

Gore had thrown 82 pitches over five scoreless innings and the Rangers weren’t going to push him. Woo’s ended after a frustrating fifth inning where he gave up three runs, got no help from his defense, gave up three runs and needed a whopping 41 pitches to get three outs.

With one out, Danny Jansen hit a ground ball to third baseman Brendan Donovan, who retreated a step, fielding it deep on the infield dirt. As he went to throw to first base to get the slow-footed Jansen, Donovan’s back leg buckled awkwardly, causing him to fall backward while taking all the power from this throw and allowing Jansen to reach first on an infield single.

It wasn’t scored an error, but it should’ve been an out.

“I tried to plant on my foot and it got stuck in the turf of something,” he said. “I had nothing on the throw.”

Donovan, who has been under the weather the past few days, was frank about his defense. He’s been charged with four errors this season and has looked shaky on multiple plays and tentative at times.

“It’s not something you can run from,” he said. “You’ve just got to keep preparing and understand I’m not playing to the standard that I set for myself, defensively and what I have done the last few years. That’s frustrating. My biggest thing is I just want to help the team win, and I don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job of that over there, so I’ll continue to prepare.”

The Mariners knew that Donovan had played second base and left predominantly for the Cardinals the last few seasons. But they believed he could handle the position. He’s worked diligently with Perry Hill and was already planning more work for early Friday.

“Ultimately, I do want the ball hit to me, and I do want to make those plays, he said. “I could sit here and say that I’ve had some tough plays, but they’re plays that I feel like I should make, and plays that they’re counting on me making. So it’s definitely frustrating. But I’ll just continue to prepare.”

With a free base runner, Josh Smith and Ezequiel Durán each followed with ground ball singles that found holes to load the bases. It appeared Woo would get the second out of the inning when Brandon Nimmo bounced a soft hopper to first baseman Connor Joe, who was called up before the game.

Wanting to keep the Rangers scoreless, Joe fielded it on the run and fired home. But his throw was high and out of the reach of Mitch Garver, who tried to stretch and make the grab. The ball bounced around off the backstop, Smith to score after Jansen for a 2-0 lead.

The Rangers tacked on another run on Corey Seager’s sac fly to center that made it 3-0.

Sponsored

“For the most part, I made the pitches I wanted to make,” Woo said. “With Durán and Smith. I definitely could have been better, just smarter, in those situations, in terms of who I want to go after. Not making pitches in those situations forced me to face the heart of the lineup with guys on base and it just didn’t go our way. I feel like I made the pitches I wanted to make and just couldn’t get the outs.”

It’s not surprising that the Mariners did little against the hard-throwing Gore.

In two previous starts vs. Seattle, he pitched a combined 13 innings, allowing just one run on eight hits with a walk and 16 strikeouts. Yes, 16 strikeouts.

Gore was dominant if not efficient, throwing five scoreless innings and allowing just one hit — a fifth inning single to Garver — while walking two batters and striking out nine.

The Mariners best chance to do anything against Gore came in the first inning. Leadoff hitter Rob Refsnyder worked a walk after falling behind 0-2.  Julio Rodríguez also drew a one-out walk to move Refsnyder to second. It would be the Mariners only runner in scoring position against Gore.

But Refsnyder wouldn’t leave second as Randy Arozarena and Donovan each struck out to end the inning. It was the start of a run where Gore retired 13 of the next 14 batters he faced.