Seattle Mariners' Rally Falls Short in 5-4 Loss to Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday
SEATTLE — The Seattle Mariners offense lacked any kind of potency for most of the game on Saturday before mounting a furious rally that came up just short against the Toronto Blue Jays. The M's are now 49-42 on the year and remain in front of the Houston Astros by 2.0 games in the American League West. They lost 5-4.
Oh — and Seattle lost its star player before he even received an at-bat as Julio Rodriguez left the game in the first inning with what was described afterwards as a quad issue.
"He came in this morning, and he felt fine," Mariners manager Scott Servais said in a postgame interview Saturday. "He was out before the game, the other guys were doing sprints in the outfield. He felt something more in his quad, lower-quad area. Just tightened up, didn't feel great. ... We'll find out more. Going to get some pictures and MRI (Saturday night)."
Without Rodriguez, who is trying to get himself going this year, the offense looked punchless for most of the game.
Seattle didn't have a base runner until the bottom of the fourth inning when Josh Rojas was walked. It didn't have a base hit until Luke Raley singled in the bottom of the fifth.
Seattle trailed 5-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning when the offense tried to mount some late-game magic.
In the bottom of that inning, Seattle had four consecutive hits: a Mitch Garver single, a Dominic Canzone single, a three-run home run from Mitch Haniger and a Dylan Moore single. Seattle cut its lead down to 5-3.
💥 HANNY 💥 pic.twitter.com/k0y43R4yu0
— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) July 6, 2024
Mariners reliever Eduard Bazardo took the mound in the ninth and helped retire the side to give his team one more chance to make up the remaining two runs.
Raley hit a no-doubt solo home run to right field in the second at-bat of bottom of the ninth. But a Garver strikeout and Canzone foul out ended the rally one run shy.
Luke Raley, a.k.a. “Nuke Raley”
— Daniel Kramer (@DKramer_) July 6, 2024
A whopping 113.4 mph off the bat to make this a one-run game here in the bottom of the 9th inning. pic.twitter.com/Bg1MtYYxd9
"Interesting game," Servais said in the postgame interview. "One way or another it gets interesting, for sure. Credit to our guys for hanging in there. We did not do anything at all offensively early on in the ball game. But (we were) able to get some big hits late to tighten it up and put a ton of pressure on (Toronto)."
Seattle will play the Blue Jays at 1 p.m. PT on Saturday in the rubber match of the three-game series. George Kirby will get the start for the Mariners. Jose Berrios will pitch for Toronto.
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RODRIGUEZ EXITS GAME: Seattle Mariners center fielder Julio Rodriguez was pulled early from a game Saturday against to the Toronto Blue Jays due to reasons that were not immediately disclosed. Rodriguez was listed to start in the four-hole in the starting lineup. He was playing center field in the top half of the first. CLICK HERE
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