Mariners let one slip away, settle for DH split

On a night when James Paxton would’ve been pitching, it was instead revealed by Mariners manager Scott Servais that the left-hander would undergo season-ending surgery. And after Seattle’s 7-6 loss to Baltimore in the nightcap of Tuesday’s seven-inning doubleheader, the club was reminded how much it will miss Big Maple in the coming five-and-a-half months.

Paxton’s replacement in the rotation, Nick Margevicius, wound up throwing just three-plus innings and blew an early 4-0 lead. After Sam Haggerty tied the game at 6 with a two-run shot in the seventh, when Seattle was down to its final three outs, reliever Casey Sadler bobbled a routine grounder, then threw a wild pitch before surrendering a walk-off single to Ramón Urías in the bottom half. The Mariners were forced to settle for a doubleheader split after a 4-3, eight-inning win in the first game.

“We’ve got to finish plays, and we didn't do it tonight,” Servais said. “You don't do that, and you're not going to win Major League ballgames. But our guys are competing very, very well. I think you see it up and down the lineup and in the field. Everybody's into it. Everybody's contributing. And that's what it will take for us to continue to play good baseball. But we stubbed our toe in the second game. It’s disappointing.”

Margevicius cruised through two innings before loading the bases in the third. He struck out Baltimore’s best bat, Trey Mancini, but couldn’t fully escape the jam. Maikel Franco jumped all over a first-pitch fastball for a bases-clearing double.

“I was just falling behind,” Margevicius said. “That’s not the thing I do. I get ahead. That’s something that’s very important to me, and I just didn't do that well tonight. I think going through the lineup the second time, falling behind again -- I wasn't very good in that third inning, and then obviously, the double clearing the bases with two outs can't happen. I need to get myself out of that inning, especially if we just put up [four runs].”

Defensively, it was an uncharacteristic night, especially after how sharp Seattle’s gloves looked in the matinee. Sadler’s miscue wound up being the final dagger, but Ty France had a critical miss that put one of the runners on base before Franco's double instead of turning it into the second out of the inning. That could’ve turned Mancini’s strikeout into an inning-ender.

Luis Torrens was also charged with a fielding error attempting to tag the third runner to score on Franco's double, Anthony Santander, which allowed Franco to advance to third base and eventually score on an ensuing single by Ryan Mountcastle.

The Mariners paid for each of their mistakes, but again, these are more outliers than causes for concern.

“It does leave kind of a sour taste in your mouth,” Servais said. “I thought we played really good. We did a lot of good things. Just the errors in the second game are what got us a little bit.”

At the plate, Kyle Seager immediately followed his game-winning hit in the matinee with a sacrifice fly in the first inning, and José Marmolejos crushed a three-run homer in the third. Mitch Haniger also had his first three-hit game since Sept. 22, 2018.