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Some Answers, Some More Questions After Seattle Mariners Tuesday Loss
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- Some Answers, Some More Questions After Seattle Mariners Tuesday Loss
NEW YORK - The Seattle Mariners dropped the latest in a string of recent tough losses on Tuesday night, losing 4-1 against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium.
Seattle has now lost five consecutive games and fallen to 56-64. It's a season-low eight games under .500 and while the playoffs are technically in play still, they seem a very distant thought for just about everyone who watches this team.
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At the end of the day, the Mariners scored one run on Tuesday night against the Yankees, and they registered only three hits. It's really hard to win that way, but the M's did have a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning, so all the discussion afterwards is about Dan Wilson's bullpen management, which continues to be a sore spot among Mariner fans, especially those who want Wilson removed from the position.
As a reminder, here's what happened:
Jose A. Ferrer pitched a scoreless bottom of the sixth inning, throwing only 16 pitches with two strikeouts.
With lefties Luis Garcia and Jazz Chisholm set to lead off the 7th inning for the Yankees, it seemed possible that the left-handed Ferrer would start the inning, or that manager Dan Wilson could go to fellow lefty Gabe Speier .
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Instead, the Mariners went with a righty - and not the presumed righty you would have thought. They went with rookie Michael Rucker instead of Eduard Bazardo or Seranthony Dominguez , and the inning unraveled.
1) Rucker gave up a double to Luis Garcia and a single to Chisholm, putting runners at first and third with nobody out.
2) He struck out George Lombard Jr., but Chisholm took second.
3) He walked Spencer Jones, but Wilson elected to stick with him with the bases loaded.
4) A soft single from Ryan McMahon gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead and Rucker was removed.
5) Bazardo came in and gave up two runs on a single by Trent Grisham .
Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson (6) watches from the dugout against the Washington Nationals during the fifth inning at Nationals Park. Rafael Suanes-Imagn Images
Some answers given, some questions raised
1) In fairness to Wilson, he revealed in a postgame media session that left-handed reliever Gabe Speier was unavailable on Tuesday because of a back issue. So, that's why he wasn't given the pocket of lefties in the 7th.
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2) At that point, here is where the questions begin:
A) Would Josh Simpson, another lefty, have been a better answer than Rucker or any of the righties? Maybe. He has an ERA of 4.50 in limited innings, but he hasn't pitched since Saturday, meaning he was certainly ready for it.
B) Could Ferrer have bounced back for a second inning? Wilson intimated that they thought about it. Perhaps he didn't send him back out there because he knows Speier may also be down on Wednesday and he was trying to keep Ferrer available. There's certainly validity to that, but there's also validity to the notion that you have to win the game directly in front of you - especially now.
C) Wilson indicated after the game that the M's were hoping to use Rucker for the seventh and then have Eduard Bazardo for the eighth, so my question is this:
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Does this team really believe that Michael Rucker is now its highest-leverage righty, and he was the guy needed to try to navigate 4-5-6 in the Yankees order, and then Bazardo was relegated to 7-8-9 duty because of his recent struggles?
Or, does Wilson still think Bazardo is the leverage guy, but he was being sent to the eighth inning just because it's the eighth inning?
D) What about Seranthony Dominguez, who this team acquired at the trade deadline? He was a closer for the Chicago White Sox this season who picked up 12 saves. Is he no longer able to pitch in leverage for the Mariners? Do they think he's below both Bazardo and Rucker?
E) Rucker loaded the bases with one out and was left in to face Ryan McMahon, who hit a two-run single to make it 2-1. Could one of the righties have come in then to try to bail things out?
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Conclusion
I've spent a lot of time defending Wilson this season, for a lot of different reasons, but this one is hard to defend. Not having Speier certainly makes the decisions less desirable, so there's kind of a slew of bad options available, but there was certainly something better than having Rucker be put in that situation against two power-hitting lefties in a one-run game.
I frankly would have started Ferrer in the inning and let him throw to the first two batters before going to Bazardo or Dominguez, as long as he felt good enough to do it. While Rucker truly does have some nice stuff and some good velocity, that's not a situation he's ready for yet, at least to me.
