By Bob Dutton
The News Tribune
It isn’t as if the gophers only run when Ariel Miranda pitches, although that’s the rush hour.
Miranda gave up four more home runs Wednesday afternoon as the Mariners squandered a four-run lead and suffered a numbing 8-7 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards that closed out a brutal August schedule.
“He had pretty good stuff,” manager Scott Servais said, “but the fastballs he left up, they were on them. And certainly, as the game went on, the second and third time around, they were on the off-speed (pitches) a little better, too.
“Not a great day.”
Not great for Miranda or the Mariners, who concluded a 12-game trip through four cities with five straight losses while dropping to 66-68. They began the day trailing Minnesota by three games in the race for the final wild-card berth.
Miranda wasn’t around at the end when the Orioles scored what proved to be the winning run after the Mariners believed they were out of the eighth inning on a line-drive double play.
The Orioles challenged the call by crew chief Fieldin Culbreth that pinch-runner Caleb Joseph had been doubled off second after Tim Beckham’s line drive to short. A replay review clearly showed Joseph beat the throw to the base.
When the inning continued, the Mariners opted for Christian Bergman to walk Manny Machado before summoning Marc Rzepczynski to face Jonathan Schoop, who delivered a tie-breaking single to center.
That’s how it ended.
“We’ve come up short,” Servais said. “There have been different reasons for our losses. Some of it has been lack of offense. Today, we had plenty of offense.”
The Mariners lost two games in Baltimore when they scored six or more runs after winning their previous 16 games when doing so. One reason: The Orioles hit nine home runs in their three-game sweep.
Miranda surrendered his four gopher balls in just 4 1/3 innings, including three after the Mariners built a 6-2 lead by knocking out Baltimore starter Ubaldo Jimenez with a six-run third inning.
The Orioles closed to within 6-5 on homers by Welington Castillo and Craig Gentry in a three-run fourth and pulled even on Schoop’s one-out blast in the fifth, which finished Miranda.
Baltimore took a 7-6 lead on Machado’s sacrifice fly in the sixth inning against David Phelps, but the Mariners tied the game on Mitch Haniger’s two-out homer in the eighth against Brad Brach.
The game turned, though, on Miranda’s inability to protect a four-run lead.
Miranda has now allowed 35 homers, which leads the majors, and pulls him into a tie with Scott Bankhead (1987) and Jason Vargas (2012) for the second-highest total in franchise history.
The club record belongs to Jamie Moyer, who have up 44 over 202 innings in 2004, but Miranda is closing with a rush: 17 homers in 51 1/3 innings over his last 10 starts. He also has a 6.84 ERA in that span.
It isn’t just Miranda, though. The Mariners have allowed 204 homers as a staff, which leads the American League and has them closing in on the franchise record of 216 allowed in 1996.
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