The normally cool facade that Luis Castillo operates with on the mound was interrupted at times Thursday night at T-Mobile Park.
There were second glances at home plate umpire Larry Vanover following unfavorable calls on borderline pitches. And more than a few frustrated head shakes at pitches that simply didn’t go to their intended locations.
It became apparent in the second inning that this outing wasn’t going to be anything like last year’s opening-day brilliance, when he was basically unhittable for six innings.
Instead, Castillo gave up four runs in five innings, the Mariners’ middle relievers allowed two more runs, the team defense was less than ideal, and Seattle’s offense couldn’t keep up in a disappointing 6-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox to open the 2024 season.
“We’ve got 161 left,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “Unfortunately we weren’t going to win them all, but I would’ve liked to get off to a better start tonight.”
A sellout crowd of 45,377 shrugged off the chilly weather to celebrate in the opening-day festivities that featured a guy spinning a flaming trident, Ichiro presenting Julio Rodriguez with his Silver Slugger award, Nelson Cruz throwing out the first pitch to Felix Hernandez and then signing a one-day contract to retire as a Mariner, the always tear-jerking Make-A-Wish run around the bases and the debut of an in-game salmon race. No, not actual salmon.
Unfortunately, those fans also got to see the Mariners’ seven-game winning streak on opening day end. It was just their second loss in the past 12 opening-day games.
“Not the way we wanted to start,” Servais said. “We’ve got a lot of games to go, and we’ve got a good team.”
It could have been so much more, with Mitch Haniger smacking a two-run homer in his first game back as a Mariner and Dylan Moore launching a rare pinch-hit, two-run homer.
Of course, the Mariners’ success in season-opening games has largely been based on their starting pitching, with Hernandez often dominating those starts.
Castillo, perhaps the closest pitcher to Hernandez in terms of talent and stuff, just couldn’t locate with consistency. Of the 24 batters he faced, he threw first-pitch strikes to only 13.
“It’s uncharacteristic,” Servais said. “He usually just dominates the strike zone in the 0-0 counts. He didn’t do it tonight. I thought there were a lot of close pitches. They did not chase. They were very disciplined tonight.”
Red Sox hitters swung at 41 pitches from Castillo, fouling off 19 and whiffing on just six. His only clean inning was the top of the first when he retired the top of the Red Sox lineup in order, including strikeouts of Rafael Devers and Trevor Story.
“Sometimes you expect a beautiful, wonderful moment on opening days like this,” Castillo said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “It didn’t go our way. But that’s baseball.”
The Red Sox grabbed a 2-0 lead in the third inning. Emmanuel Valdez led off with a single. It looked like Castillo might escape the inning unscathed, retiring the next two hitters. But Devers, Boston’s best hitter, took advantage of an 0-1 sinker that leaked back on to the outer corner of the plate. The left-hander put a simple swing on fastball away, sending it into the Mariners bullpen for a two-run homer.
“Some of the pitches that didn’t go where I wanted them to go,” Castillo said. “Those are the pitches where they got us. The sinker ran a little too high, and he was able to get to it. All credit to him.”
Boston pushed the lead to 3-0 in a pitch-filled fourth inning. With Tyler O’Neill on third, Ceddanne Rafaela hit a ball down the third-base line. Josh Rojas made a nice backhand stop but had only one play — throw it home. The throw hit off O’Neill’s helmet and bounced away allowing him to score.
“I don’t think we played our cleanest game tonight,” Servais said. “We had an error and a couple of other plays that we typically make that we didn’t, and they took advantage of it.”
Haniger, who received a standing ovation before his first at-bat, smacked a two-run homer to right field off Red Sox starter Brayan Bello in the bottom of the fourth cut the deficit to 3-2 in the third inning.
“I’ve seen Mitch hit a lot of homers throughout his career, [but] that ball he hit to right field, I haven’t seen him do that a lot,” Servais said. “Most of his home runs have been to the pull side and left center. He’s in a really good spot mechanically. He feels good. We’ve got to keep him healthy. He’s really important to our team.”
It was Haniger’s first homer to right field since September 2021.
“I worked a lot this offseason on swing path,” Haniger said. “I came into spring feeling good. I had a good spring, and it carried over tonight.”
Boston got another run back against Castillo in the fifth on a fielder’s choice with runners on second and third. In the fifth inning, Rafaela tripled into the left field corner off lefty Tayler Saucedo. He later scored when Connor Wong somehow singled to right on a pitch that was eight inches off the plate.
Moore was called on to pinch-hit in the seventh inning with Joely Rodriguez on the mound and Haniger on first base.
He launched a fastball over the wall in center to cut the deficit to 5-4.
“It was a huge hit in the game,” Servais said.
But again the Red Sox added to their lead. O’Neill, a one-time Mariners prospect, hit a solo homer off Cody Bolton in the eighth inning. It was the fifth consecutive season in which O’Neill homered on opening day.
“They got some RBI hits with two outs, and those are huge,” Servais said. “We just a hard time keeping them down.”
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