Mariners come up short -- literally -- in loss to Marlins

SEATTLE -- Not one, not two, not three, not four. The Mariners hit a whopping five balls to the warning track on Wednesday night at T-Mobile Park, and because none of them cleared the wall, they didn’t get much going in a 4-1 loss to the Marlins in an attempt to sweep.

And the closest ball to leaving the yard was also the most gut-wrenching.

Scoreless with one out in the ninth inning but with the bases loaded, Eugenio Suárez rocketed a 372-foot drive 98.1 mph off his bat to deep right, only to see Miami’s Jesús Sánchez extend his neon-blue-shaded glove beyond the wall’s exterior and yank back a would-be game-tying grand slam.

Suárez was also the victim of two of those other deep outs, making him just the seventh player with at least three flyouts of 372 feet or more since Statcast began tracking in 2015. Dylan Moore also had a trifecta of poor fortune on Sept. 5, 2021, at Arizona, making the Mariners the only team with at least two players on this unlucky list.

Just about everyone in the building thought it was gone -- here’s some reaction:

• Suárez: "It is hard, man, but I understand this game,” Suárez said. “Sometimes, it's like that. ... The moment I saw that he was jumping, I thought it was a homer, for sure. And he made a really good catch. That's why I'm like, I give credit to him because he made a really good catch."

• Sánchez, through an interpreter: “[Marlins outfield coach] Jon Jay gave me a little warning of going a little back on that at-bat and when I saw the ball just going out, elevating, just kept going back to the wall. Just waiting there, just the timing and the jump. And when I felt the glove that was heavy, I knew there that I made the catch. So I grabbed the ball, just made the throw. It was great.”

• Mariners manager Scott Servais: “Oh, yeah. I thought it was gone. Geno, he's got a knack for doing that late in games, barreling balls up. He can certainly get the ball in the air. I thought it was gone. Again, fantastic play by Sánchez. Just not quite enough -- needed about another foot.”

• Marlins reliever A.J. Puk, who was on the mound: “I saw Sanchi looked like he was trying to camp underneath it at the warning track and it kept going a little bit and he jumped up and made that amazing play and saved the team there.”

And here’s a look at the total flyouts that the Mariners nearly converted into homers:

• Teoscar Hernández (1st inning): 400 feet, .720 expected batting average
• Eugenio Suárez (2nd inning): 385 feet, .290 xBA
• Ty France (4th inning): 378 feet, .450 xBA
• Suárez (5th inning): 386 feet, .570 xBA
• Suárez (9th inning): 372 feet, .450 xBA

“Just a foot here, a foot there and it's a little bit of a different ballgame,” Servais said. “But a good series for us, it really was. I'm disappointed we lost tonight, no question. The guys are a little frustrated. But our fight at the end of the game, it was there.”

Castillo’s confounding night

Luis Castillo walked a career-high-tying six while with non-competitive misses on his four-seam fastball to the glove side virtually all night.

Yet, to borrow baseball’s cliché, “La Piedra” was effectively wild.

Castillo’s final line was still serviceable and enough to keep Seattle’s bats in the ballgame. His lone runs manifested via a 409-foot solo homer in the sixth from Jorge Soler, who is third in MLB with 20, and a wild pitch on the wildest of sliders with two outs in the third, which allowed Jonathan Davis to score from third easily.

“Just a bad outing for me,” Castillo said through an interpreter. “I don't think the command or the location of my pitches were there where I wanted them. Only two hits, but I think the walks are obviously what caused the most damage tonight.”

Aside from the homer, Castillo surrendered just one other hit -- a single to Davis, which he turned into the run-scoring play -- and struck out six while generating 16 whiffs compared to the 10 from Marlins starter Eury Pérez. Miami’s towering 6-foot-8 righty is MLB Pipeline’s No. 6 overall prospect and was making just his seventh career start, and he was scoreless over a career-high six innings, thanks in part to the deep flyouts.