A comeback victory was coming together for the Mariners.
Cleveland reliever James Karinchak seemed to be trending toward a repeat of his opening-night implosion, fueled by pitch-clock panic and a boisterous crowd happy to make his life miserable.
With one out and down two runs, the Mariners had a runner on second base and pinch-hitter Cal Raleigh coming to the plate as the tying run.
The last time Raleigh pinch hit in a packed T-Mobile Park, he dented the Hit It Here Café with a walk-off homer that clinched a playoff spot for the Mariners.
There would be no magic this time. Raleigh fouled off a couple of pitches, but Karinchak froze him with a called strike three.
But the Mariners’ hopes were still alive after Karinchak inexplicably issued a four-pitch walk to J.P. Crawford, bringing Julio Rodriguez to the plate as the go-ahead run.
A crowd of 44,250 — many of them there to collect Rodriguez’s first bobblehead figurine — rose to its feet in anticipation of his possible heroics.
Instead, Rodriguez, who was put at a disadvantage by a called second strike on a curveball well out of the zone, struck out swinging to end the eighth inning and any realistic rally hopes for the Mariners.
Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase rolled through a 1-2-3 ninth inning to close out a 2-0 victory over the Mariners in a Saturday evening game that lasted just 2 hours and 4 minutes.
“We were dominated by some really good pitching,” manager Scott Servais said. “We’ve got to come back tomorrow and get a split in the series and keep on moving.”
The eighth inning represented the Mariners’ best and only scoring opportunity since the first inning. Karinchak managed to pitch through the crowd counting down the pitch clock on almost every pitch and trying to rattle him after it seemed to affect him on Thursday.
“I thought we had a chance,” Servais said. “He’s tough. He’s got a lot of ride on the fastball. It’s up to 95-96 mph and that big overhand curveball. We had our guys up there. He executed. He beat us. That happens in this game.”
But really it was Cleveland starter Aaron Civale.
With the exception of Rodriguez, the Mariners struggled to solve the “spin” from Civale. The right-hander, who rarely throws a pitch over 91 mph, used a mixture of cutters and curveballs to keep them scoreless for seven innings. He allowed two hits — both to Rodriguez — with a walk and three strikeouts.
“I thought Civale was really good,” Servais said. “He was ahead in the count night. It was a lot of cutters and the curveball is very effective pitch for him. He got in a really good rhythm against us.”
And the Mariners couldn’t get him out of that rhythm.
“With the pitch clock going, it’s really hard to slow a guy down,” Servais said. “When a pitcher gets in that kind of rhythm, he was rolling out there. He was on top of his game. It’s as good as we’ve ever seen him tonight.”
The Mariners had just five balls in play off Civale with exit velocities 95 mph or higher. The rest was soft contact.
“He was pretty dominant tonight,” Ty France said. “He had everything working which makes it a lot harder, especially when you kind of have a plan going up there based off how he’s pitched you in the past and he completely does the opposite.”
Rodriguez led off the game with a single and stole second, but he was stranded there with Kolten Wong flying out to left and France and Eugenio Suarez each grounding out to third.
Cleveland’s opening-night starter Shane Bieber, who relies heavily on the cutter and slider, tossed six scoreless innings, allowing six hits. The Mariners won that game on France’s three-run homer off Karinchak — the only runs scored in the game. In Friday’s loss, the Mariners scored all four of their runs off Hunter Gaddis, who was a fill-in starter for the injured Triston McKenzie.
The Mariners otherwise been held scoreless in 23 innings in this series.
The Mariners got a strong performance from Logan Gilbert in his first start of the season.
The lanky right-hander pitched six strong innings, allowing one run on four hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. The outing would’ve been impeccable if not for one highly regrettable mistake pitch.
In the fourth inning, Gilbert fell behind Josh Naylor after a first-pitch fastball leaked off the plate away. He wanted to come back with a slider on the inside part of the plate. But the pitch, that was so good most of the night, didn’t go to its intended location. It stayed right in the middle of the plate.
Naylor crushed the pitch into the seats in deep right-center now known as the J-Rod “No Fly Zone” for a solo homer.
“I liked the pitch call, but I just left it up a little bit,” Gilbert said. “It’s a balance. You want to be aggressive, but obviously that’s not the spot to go to. There’s a small margin for error at this level. But at the end of the day, I like being aggressive and attack. I feel like over the course of a season that aggressiveness usually wins or helps you out more.”
Cleveland’s other run came in the seventh inning after Gilbert had exited the game. Right-hander Diego Castillo started the inning and allowed a solo homer to Andres Gimenez with one out that made it 2-0.
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