The Mariners left Toronto with a sweep, a season-worst nine games under .500, and a whole lot of ugly questions they didn’t answer once over three games.
Sunday was the worst of the bunch. Max Scherzer, carrying a 7.02 ERA and 1.540 WHIP into the start at age 42, carved up Seattle for a one-hit, 7-0 Blue Jays win.
For most of his career, losing to Scherzer has been the kind of thing you shrug off. This version of Scherzer - the one Seattle ran into Sunday - still had enough to make the Mariners look helpless.
Logan Gilbert got the start opposite him, but Seattle never came close to making that matchup matter. Scherzer worked with a 93 mph fastball and a pile of breaking stuff, and the Mariners simply couldn’t solve it. He racked up 17 whiffs, four more than he had in any previous start this season, and finished with 10 strikeouts, passing Gaylord Perry for ninth on the all-time strikeouts list.
The loss capped a miserable weekend that started with an 8-1 beating on Friday and continued Saturday, when Kade Anderson and the bullpen blew a 3-0 lead in a 4-3 defeat. Sunday somehow felt worse than both of those. Emerson Hancock also landed on the injured list with an adductor strain after the spill he took in the first inning on Friday.
Now Seattle sits at 64-73 and needs to win 17 of its final 25 games just to get back to .500.
That’s the strange tension hanging over the Mariners right now. The schedule ahead is as soft as any in baseball, which would normally look like a lifeline.
The Boston Red Sox come next, and they arrive with their own uneven stretch attached: 42-17 since June 25, but 10-12 since August 8. After that, Seattle gets nothing but teams with losing records.
But the bigger issue is obvious. Why trust this group to take advantage of any of it?
Cal Raleigh has started swinging it better again, but the offense still hasn’t found a real rhythm. The pitching staff owns a 5.49 ERA.
The mental mistakes keep stacking up. The whole operation looks out of sync, and the sweep in Toronto only sharpened that picture.
This no longer looks like a team that’s been unlucky. It looks like a bad team playing bad baseball, and the blame doesn’t stop with one person.
Dan Wilson gets his share of it, but so does everyone else. There are hard calls ahead when this season finally ends.
In Other News...
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Jarred Kelenic's Latest Move Is A Tough Reminder For Mariners Fans
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Logan Gilbert Now Carries Extra Weight As Mariners Watch Exes Move
The Mariners are headed into their next matchup in Toronto with Logan Gilbert lined up opposite Max Scherzer, a pairing that adds a little extra gravity after the loss they just absorbed there. Gilbert has long been one of Seattles most important arms, and any time he is asked to match up with a name like Scherzer, it tends to feel like more than just another night on the schedule.
Around the rest of the league, a few familiar and not-so-familiar names keep moving through the transaction wire, from Jacob Wilsons shoulder surgery news with the Athletics to Luis Robert Jr. landing on waivers with the Mets and Justin Topa being designated for assignment by the Yankees. Cade Marlowe also landed with the Angels on a minor league deal, another reminder of how quickly the ex-Mariners carousel keeps turning while Seattle focuses on the game in front of it. [Read more 🡒]