TAMPA -- The Mariners' road woes, unfortunately for them, remained alive and well in a 10-2 loss on Monday night. And within those pressing concerns in the thick of another three-city, East Coast weave is the state of their rotation’s longtime workhorse.
Luis Castillo was hit hard again, surrendering five earned runs, failing to pitch beyond the fourth inning and putting Seattle’s offense in a sizable hole early that the club was unable to climb out of.
“I'm not frustrated, but I know that I'm going through tough times right now,” Castillo said through an interpreter. “It happens in the game. Sometimes, you go through tough times and then you have to wait for the good ones and keep working.”
The Mariners have now lost three of four on this trip, eight of their past nine away from T-Mobile Park and fell to 32-38 on the season away from home. They also fell to three games behind Houston for first place in the American League West and 3 1/2 games behind Boston in the AL Wild Card race, after each won earlier Monday. Seattle clung to the AL’s final playoff spot by just 1 1/2 games over Texas, which had a comeback win over Arizona.
Front and center for many of these road woes has been Castillo, though he’s also experienced pronounced hiccups at home during this stretch that’s extended more than a month, as he now has a 7.31 ERA since the start of August, though it’s a 10.06 ERA over his past four starts -- three of which have come on the road.
And the precarious question of where to go from here isn’t an easy one to answer, with Castillo’s next start slated for Sunday in Atlanta.
The Mariners have an off-day on Thursday they could use to re-slot their rotation, push Castillo back and allocate him extra rest. Optioning him to Triple-A Tacoma is not an option because of his service time, and they obviously won’t designate their most expensive player for assignment.
“He's been a guy that we've been able to depend on, and we still depend on him, and he's going to figure it out,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “He's a guy that we love sending him out there, because he's been in these situations, he knows what to do. We've got to keep going with it.”
Castillo retired each of his first four hitters but quickly found himself in a second-inning jam against the bottom of Tampa Bay’s order. A single then stolen base to Jake Mangum and a four-pitch walk to Richie Palacios set up No. 8 hitter Nick Fortes for a three-run homer that narrowly cleared the right-center wall.
The Mariners successfully sought a crew chief review on the play, after a fan made contact with the ball, but replay review confirmed that it did indeed clear the fence cleanly. It was the ninth homer in this six-start stretch for Castillo, over which opposing hitters have posted a slash line of .331/.380/.661 (1.041 OPS). He’d surrendered zero homers over his previous six starts, over which he had a 1.96 ERA while experiencing a continued rise in velocity.
“I haven't changed anything,” Castillo said. “I just continue to work and it's waiting for the good times, because you're not always going to have bad times.”
However, it didn’t help Castillo’s situation that the Mariners’ only real chance of scoring while the game was still in reach came up short in the sixth inning, when they reached third base for the first time all night with two outs but Eugenio Suárez struck out to halt a possible rally.
The Mariners also recorded another out on the basepaths just as momentum was mounting in the first inning, when Randy Arozarena was picked off after stealing his 25th base and ripping a 107.5 mph single on the game’s first pitch.
“It's little things here and there, and that's what makes the big difference,” Wilson said.
They were also stymied by a starter who’d experienced his own share of struggles, as Shane Baz carried a 7.92 ERA in August but held the Mariners scoreless over six innings while picking up his first win since June 26.
The lone bright spot was that they avoided a shutout thanks to the first career homer from Leo Rivas, the journeyman infielder who was recalled earlier on Monday as part of September rosters expanding. Other than that, it was another disappointing night in a stretch that’s been full of them away from Seattle.