SEATTLE -- The Rangers had the Mariners lined up exactly how they wanted them Friday night.
After starting pitcher Jack Leiter went just 4 1/3 innings, the Rangers newly reconstructed bullpen had to cover a number of innings on the back end. The just-acquired duo of Danny Coulombe and Phil Maton both earned holds with a scoreless frame apiece. Hoby Milner got five outs in relief of Leiter, though he did allow an inherited runner to score.
That all set up southpaw closer Robert Garcia to face three lefties at the bottom of the Mariners lineup in the bottom of the ninth inning. It couldn’t have happened more perfectly.
But Garcia allowed a leadoff single to Dominic Canzone before J.P. Crawford dealt the final blow with a two-run walk-off home run, handing the Rangers a 4-3 loss at their own personal House of Horrors, T-Mobile Park.
“He's done a great job,” manager Bruce Bochy said of Garcia. “He just made a couple of mistakes. We had our guy out there. He was lined up like we would want. It just didn't work out tonight. He just left a couple balls there in the Nitro zone.
“Everybody did a nice job. They had lefties there. We had our lefty out there. Give them credit, they threw up two good at-bats. That's all you can do. [Garcia] just didn't locate well tonight.”
This was Garcia’s first blown save since June 14 against the White Sox at home -- a game the Rangers would come back to win in extra innings -- though the lefty did take the loss in a July 12 walk-off loss in Houston. He had a 1.13 ERA in July and hadn’t allowed an earned run in 15 of his last 18 outings before Friday.
There couldn’t have been a worse time for it to blow up for him and the Rangers.
“It sucks,” Garcia said. “I didn't make pitches tonight, and they beat me. That's really it. It's part of the game. It sucks because we really needed that win. There's tomorrow and there's still a lot of games left.”
“It sucks,” he said again. “But the next day is another ballgame, and I have to be in that same spot and get it done for the team. It sucks. It doesn't feel good, but it's part of being in this role. Sometimes you gotta be a man. It's a tough job.”
Bochy emphasized multiple times that Garcia is the Rangers’ closer and he felt no need to shift roles at this juncture. After all, Garcia had been so good for Texas since sliding into the role on a more full-time basis in late May.
Despite the new additions of Maton and Coulombe, as well as the return of Jon Gray from the injured list, Bochy liked the way Friday night’s game lined up for the club. The closer just didn’t finish the job.
“We had our closer out there,” Bochy said adamantly. “There’s nobody else that would want out there.”