TORONTO – For rookies thrown into the big leagues in mid-season, the adjustment can be a tenuous process, and Travis Blackley struggled again Wednesday night.
Which meant he fit right in with the rest of the Seattle Mariners.
A team that has lost five games in a row looked like it might never win another, failing in all aspects of an 12-4 defeat at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Desperate for positives? Seattle out-hit Toronto, 13-11.
And was still out-scored by a touchdown.
A 21-year-old left-hander, Blackley is delighted to be in the major leagues – but he may have left a better team to get here. In Tacoma, they score runs. They play defense. The bullpen ends rallies rather than extends them.
None of that happened for the Mariners in Game No. 82, and the team is now within a game of its longest losing streak this season.
“We’ve had a season of bad games, but this one was terrible,” manager Bob Melvin said.
Ahead 3-1 in the fifth inning, the Mariners imploded. They loaded the bases with one out in their half of that fifth inning, then watched it end without a run as Jolbert Cabrera grounded into a double play.
“That swung the momentum,” Melvin said.
In the Blue Jays half, the speed with which this game got away was stunning:
* Blackley struck out the first man he faced, Alex Rios, but did so with a wild pitch in the dirt, and Rios, despite striking out, reached first base safely.
* The second batter he faced, Josh Phelps, ignited what would become the biggest night of his career with a game-tying home run.
* With one out and a runner on first base, Blackley got Orlando Hudson to ground sharply to third baseman Scott Spiezio. Double play? No, a two-base error, and when left fielder’s Cabrera’s relay throw overshot the cutoff man, Toronto scored the go-ahead run.
“There’s an ‘x’ out there where two seams meet, and if the ball hits on one side of the ‘x’ it stays down,” Spiezio said. “If it hits on the other side, it stays up. I didn’t know how to play it. If I had it to do over again, I’d have stayed down.”
Trailing after five, Blackley never got another out, giving up a walk and a single in the sixth inning before being replaced by reliever Julio Mateo.
Mateo hit the first batter he faced to load the bases, then gave up a grand slam to Phelps to unload them.
Before the night ended, Phelps had himself quite a week – two home runs and seven RBI – the most by a Blue Jay since 1987.
That year, Blackley turned four.
By the eighth inning, Melvin turned to closer Eddie Guardado just to get him work. Save opportunities are as rare as sellouts for the Mariners lately.
“We’re really struggling,” Guardado said. “I try to stay positive, because in this game I think you’ve got to, but we’re just not playing baseball right now. It’s not that we’re not trying, but it’s not happening.”
“Some guys are having better years than others,” Spiezio said, “but as a team we’ve just been bad.”
Spiezio will take a seat in the dugout tonight, in large part because of what happened in a meaningless at-bat in the ninth inning and the game long-since decided.
Rookie infielder Justin Leone made his second pinch-hit appearance of his career, and quickly fell behind reliever Justin Speier, one ball and two strikes.
Then he fouled off five pitches – and doubled into left center field. That earned him a start today at third base.
“I played a lot of years not thinking I’d ever get an at-bat up here,” said Leone, 27. “If nothing else, I’ve got one hit.”
Hits weren’t the problem against Toronto, runs were.
Shortstop Rich Aurilia, for instance, had three hits Wednesday, but didn’t score or drive in a run. The Blue Jays left only four runs on base all night. The Mariners? Ten.
Blackley, who could have pointed out all of that, did not.
“I tried to do too much in a few situations and it didn’t help me any,” he said. “I got out of one jam (in the third) and felt pretty good. That fifth inning took a lot out of me.”
“That fifth inning,” Melvin said, “took a lot out of all of us. At times, it seems like we’re finding a way to lose games.”
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