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ARLINGTON, Texas — In their final road game of the season, the Seattle Mariners lost to the Texas Rangers 6-1 Sunday at Globe Life Park.
Seattle finished with a 44-37 record away from Safeco Field this season, which is a pretty solid result for any team.
“I think we’ve swung the bat better on the road than we have at home,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “I’ve often said you have to hit on the road to win. Obviously, that’s what we didn’t do enough of today. But overall, we have had some good trips and some good series on the road, but it just hasn’t been enough.”
The Mariners were eliminated from playoff contention Saturday.
A night after scoring a season-high 13 runs on 16 hits, including a plethora of extra-base hits, the Mariners were held to just the one run on six hits Sunday.
“We had chances,” Servais said. “We had guys out there in scoring position where you need the big double or the big swing of the bat to get you back in the game, and we just didn’t get it today.”
The Mariners went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven runners on base.
“Offensively on this road trip, we did some things better to keep rallies going and put bigger numbers on the board,” Servais said. “Today wasn’t the case.”
Seattle’s lone run came in the third inning. The M’s grabbed a 1-0 lead when Kristopher Negron doubled to left field and scored on Guillermo Heredia’s double to right.
That 1-0 lead turned into a 4-1 deficit in the bottom of the sixth when the Rangers roughed up Wade LeBlanc and Nick Vincent for four runs on five hits.
After working five shutout innings, LeBlanc (8-5) was charged with three runs in the sixth.
LeBlanc gave up singles to Elvis Andrus and Adrian Beltre to start the inning, then misplaced a curveball to Nomar Mazara, which resulted in a two-run double to deep center.
“It was a hanging curveball,” LeBlanc said. “I got him earlier in the game on a breaking ball. I tried to go back to it and just left it up.”
Vincent entered the game and gave up three straight hits to allow two more runs to score.
“Vinnie just didn’t have it,” Servais said.
The Rangers picked up two more runs in the eighth inning on a towering two-run homer from pinch-hitter Joey Gallo to make it 6-1.
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