ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Angels had chances, and they had help from Seattle, too. None of it mattered once the mistakes started piling up.
Wednesday’s 7-2 loss to the Mariners turned into a mess of extra outs, missed chances and shaky execution, with both teams giving away openings but only Seattle cashing them in.
Yusei Kikuchi was in trouble almost immediately. He opened the game by allowing back-to-back singles and a walk, loading the bases with nobody out.
He limited the damage from there, but not by much: Cal Raleigh lifted a sacrifice fly and Josh Naylor followed with an RBI single to put the Mariners ahead 2-0. Kikuchi still had to throw 40 pitches just to get through the first inning.
“From the start of the game I knew that I didn't have my best stuff,” Kikuchi said via translator. “So even though in those days I try to get through my role.”
The Angels answered right away, scoring in each of the first two innings to pull even at 2-2. For a while, that looked like enough to keep the game within reach.
Then the fifth inning unraveled.
Kikuchi walked three hitters in the frame, one of them intentionally, and Raleigh made him pay with an RBI double that pushed Seattle back in front, 3-2. From there, the inning tilted hard in the Mariners’ favor when Vaughn Grissom, filling in at first base with Nolan Schanuel on the injured list, mishandled a ground ball from Naylor that could have ended the inning with a double play. His throw to second sailed wide of Zach Neto and rolled into left field.
“I think overall he's [Grissom] been doing a good job over there, obviously out of necessity with Schany [Schanuel] being down,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said. “Tonight was a tough one. I know he wants that one back, but at the end of the day, you've just got to execute and tonight, unfortunately we didn't.”
Raleigh and Dominic Canzone both scored on the error, and Kikuchi’s night was over after 4.1 innings.
The mess didn’t stop there. Sammy Peralta came on for Kikuchi and returned for the sixth, but the inning quickly slipped away.
He started with a walk, then J.P. Crawford reached when he beat out a fielder’s choice.
A passed ball by catcher Moisés Ballesteros and a wild pitch from Peralta in the same at-bat to Randy Arozarena moved Crawford to third before Arozarena walked. Canzone then ripped a hard ground ball that skipped off third baseman Denzer Guzman for an RBI single, and Raleigh followed with another RBI hit to make it 7-2.
By then, the game was effectively out of reach.
The Angels had their own chance to flip the script in the fifth. An error, a walk and a missed play by center fielder Julio Rodriguez loaded the bases with one out, giving them a prime shot to climb right back into it. But Josh Lowe and Christian Moore both struck out swinging, and the inning ended with nothing to show for it.
“[Getting] guys on base was really good and then we're just missing that one big hit, right?” Suzuki said.
“To maybe break it open or get it going a little bit more. But I thought the at-bats were good to get there.
We just had a tough time cashing them in.”
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