Seattle Mariners get swept by Yankees, now head to Boston

The Seattle Mariners have hit a bump in the road with four straight losses and an upcoming series in Boston.

The Seattle Mariners are in the midst of a stretch of 13 games against potential playoff teams, including 10 games against the beasts of the East, the Yankees and Red Sox. After sweeping the Angels at home early last week, they split a four-game series with the Red Sox before flying to New York on Monday.

On Tuesday, the Yankees easily beat the Mariners in the first game of the series with a 7-2 victory that included four home runs. Game two was a heartbreaker for the Mariners. They jumped out to a 5-0 lead through four-and-a-half innings, but Felix Hernandez faded in the fifth and the bullpen gave up five runs in the final three innings. They lost on a walk-off two-run jack by Giancarlo Stanton.

The Mariners had a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of the eighth in this game. Reliever Alex Colome had entered the game and struck out Stanton to end the seventh, but ran into trouble in the eighth with a leadoff walk to Gleyber Torres that was followed by a two-run dinger by Gary Sanchez.

With the score tied 5-5 heading to the bottom of the ninth, Mariners manager Scott Servais went with Ryan Cook rather than closer Edwin Diaz even though Diaz was plenty rested (hadn’t pitched in the previous three days). Cook gave up the walk-off to Stanton. There’s an argument to be made that Servais should have used Diaz before Cook. He didn’t. They lost.

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Today’s game was another heartbreaker. The best starting pitcher on the Mariners, James Paxton, gave up a pair of two-run home runs in the bottom of the first. The Mariners came right back with a two-run homer by Kyle Seager in the second. They added a third run in the top of the sixth, but that was all they could muster and they were handed a rare one-run loss, losing 4-3. This drops their record in one-run games to 23-11, which is still very impressive.

Now the Mariners head to Boston to play the team tied for the second-best winning percentage in the American League. The Mariners have lost four straight games for the first time all year. They’ll send out Wade LeBlanc, Mike Leake and Marco Gonzales against Steven Wright, Eduardo Rodriguez and Chris Sale.

The good news for Mariner fans is the team still has a 6.5-game lead over the Angels for the second wild card spot despite a worse run-differential. That’s a nice cushion to have as the season nears its halfway point. Before today’s game, the Mariners were projected to finish 91-71, seven games ahead of the Angels in the AL West and in the race for the second wild card spot. The Mariners also have a substantial advantage in their playoff odds over teams other than the Astros, Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians.

69.4 %—Seattle Mariners

15.1 %—Los Angeles Angels

7.8 %—Oakland Athletics

7.4 %—Minnesota Twins

3.8 %—Toronto Blue Jays

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Most teams go through good and bad streaks during the season. The Mariners are in a bad one right now and have three tough games coming up. It would be great if they could win one or two. If not, at least they have four games with the Orioles to try to salvage this road trip.