Angels beat Mariners 4-2 to complete 4-game sweep

Published 1:30 am Sunday, August 13, 2017

SEATTLE — Do the Seattle Mariners have a Plan B to bridge the span until James Paxton and (hopefully) Felix Hernandez return from the disabled list and rejoin the rotation at some point in September?

Because the early returns on their modified piggyback plan aren’t promising.

Lefty Ariel Miranda got the hook Sunday in the fifth inning — although he had labored through 96 pitches — and reliever James Pazos promptly permitted two inherited runners to score in what turned into a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.

“Painful,” club chairman John Stanton said simply as he walked past the clubhouse after the game.

Wasn’t it though?

Sunday’s loss capped a four-game weekend sweep by the Angels at Safeco Field and dropped the Mariners back under .500 (at 59-60) while heightening questions regarding their ability to mount a postseason push.

“It was definitely a tough weekend for us,” third baseman Kyle Seager said. “We let some games slip away from us. We certainly need to do better than that. We can’t let it become more than that. We have to keep it at a bad weekend.

“If we dwell on this, it spirals into a couple of weeks here. Our job is to turn the page and flip the script as fast as we can.”

Let’s go down that road. Say it was just a bad weekend. Even a casual glance at the many contenders for the American League’s two wild-card spots readily shows that each lurched through at times rough stretches.

The Mariners appeared dead in the water in May but, conversely, entered their four-game series against the Angels on a sustained surge that carried them into sole possession of the final wild-card berth.

“We were playing good ball coming off the road,” manager Scott Servais said. “We’ve got to play. The Angels played better than we did for four days. I say that and you can look back at all four games, and we were right in all four games.”

What raises concern is this bad weekend comes after Paxton, the club’s emerging ace, suffered a strained left pectoral muscle in the series opener. He is expected to miss at least three weeks.

Paxton’s injury came just five days after the Mariners put Hernandez on the disabled list for the second time this season because of bursitis in his shoulder. Hernandez hasn’t yet resumed a throwing program.

Faced with few alternatives, the Mariners’ solution is to rely increasingly on what has been a strong bullpen while applying a quick hook to their starting pitchers. They did that in May, when Paxton missed time, and were able to tread water.

It sure didn’t work this weekend:

— Edwin Diaz gave up three runs Thursday in the ninth inning in a 6-3 loss after the Mariners bailed out Paxton by scoring three times in the eighth inning.

— Andrew Moore and Pazos gave up five runs over three innings Friday in a 6-5 loss. Moore gave up four two-out runs in the seventh .

— Casey Lawrence and Tony Zych gave five runs in two innings Saturday in a 6-3 loss after Erasmo Ramirez limited the Angels to one unearned run in six innings.

— All four runs Sunday were charged to Miranda, but Pazos fueled the Angels’ three-run fifth by issuing a walk that moved a runner into scoring position before Martin Maldonado grounded a decisive two-run single up the middle.

“The bullpen did struggle throughout the weekend for a number of reasons,” Servais said. “For one, for a couple of days there, we gave some guys some days off who needed it. We’d been running them very hard.

“When you do that, you put other guys in positions that they’re not normally in. Guys coming out of the pen, that first hitter you face is the most important. We didn’t do a good job out of the bullpen with the first hitter.”

It all played out in front of big crowds.

The attendance Sunday was 43,199, and the four-day average was 40,454. Much of that was due, no doubt, to the celebrations surrounding the ceremony Saturday to retire Edgar Martinez’s No. 11.

But part of the lure, too, is this was a big series, and the Mariners stumbled badly. Going forward, they either need a Plan B. Or for Plan A to work a lot better. Because all those fans know Stanton is right. This was painful.