Mariners are useful idiots, walk off series finale 5-4

“I’ve never seen a ball go in someone’s shirt before. That’s a first for me,” said Dan Wilson postgame, and if Dan Wilson, who has seen more baseball played than 99% of the population, has never seen something, that’s how you know it’s weird times.

I had hoped for Logan to bounce back after escaping having his abdomen look like an outtake from Alien, and it seemed he might, as he got his first two outs of the inning – one on a sac fly, and one on a harmless pop out – and looked like he might get out of the jam with just the one run scored. But Jeff McNeil spoiled that hope, lacing a line drive on a fastball that crept too close to the middle of the plate, putting the Mariners in an early 2-0 hole. The inning ended when McNeil tried to steal second, which at 34 years of age is just rude, and Cal Raleigh had the throw there well in time, run down by a particularly determined-looking Cole Young.

Speaking of Young, the defense did not do Gilbert any favors as he labored through his outing, bobbling balls in the outfield (Julio Rodríguez), making offline throws (J.P. Crawford), and whiffing on gettable ground balls (Leo Rivas), so thank goodness for Cole Young’s defense, as I have always said.

Unfortunately, Gilbert didn’t help himself out in a similar fashion, immediately hitting Max Muncy after that and then walking Lawrence Butler to load the bases and cost himself a bunch of extra pitches in order to get out of the inning. Gilbert just was not efficient today, making it just four innings on his weekly allotment of pitches.

Afterwards, a banged-up Gilbert – wincing around the bruise in the center of his chest (“it’s not great”), his wrist bandaged but a bright red spot still blooming through, looking like a 19th century Legionnaire washed up at T-Mobile Park – said the issue for him today was in not having his fastball command.

“I was fighting against myself, like fastball and cutter were missing armside, and I wasn’t really able to make an adjustment during the game. So my other pitches felt fine, but you know, that’s kind of the baseline. Commanding those pitches sets everything else up. So it’s kind of unfortunate. I’m usually able to make a quick adjustment, but that just wasn’t the case today.

Since Gilbert narrowly avoided a fate where he was punched clean through the chest like Elmer Fudd facing a Bugs Bunny-wielded cannon, we’ll give him a pass on the adjustment. But that did leave four innings for the bullpen to cover – a bullpen that had been stretched fairly thin over the previous two games, and coming up on the end of a 13-game stretch.

In college I wrote a really terrible poem about a chair I saw in a museum with a big sign on it that said “PLEASE DO NOT SIT” and I wondered, what is a chair you can’t sit on? Divorced from its function, is it still a chair? Anyway, this occurred to me for no discernible reason while watching José A. Ferrer throw two innings in relief of Logan Gilbert. What is a ground ball pitcher who can’t get ground balls? No sooner had I posed the question then Ferrer rolled an inning-ending double play, so we will save that particular existential question for another day.

Meanwhile, though, as the SS Gilbert shuddered and limped into port on a shorter journey than anticipated, the significantly older and rustier SS Civale rebounded from an inflated pitch count first inning and dispatched the Mariners neatly over the next four innings, a lone Cal Raleigh solo shot the only damage other than the first inning. Oh, you would like to see the Cal Raleigh dinger? Out of respect to Civale and how terrible this pitch is I was going to skip it, but if you insist:

I know Cal Raleigh has been struggling, but you absolutely cannot throw him that pitch there. Or counterpoint: thank you.

With Josh Naylor aboard in the sixth, the A’s lifted him for lefty Brady Basso, causing Dan Wilson to push the big red scuffed-up button labeled PLATOON! in the dugout. First up was Mitch Garver, in for Luke Raley, and Garver found the sauce: Basso tried to throw him similar pitches in the same location and after taking the cutter for a strike, Garv pounced on the changeup, walloping (for Garver, 101.5 off the bat is a certified Wallop) it for a double. Then Rob Refsnyder, who is one of the few Adults on this team, did his job and got the run home with a sac fly. Platoon Power!

With a brand-new-ballgame that allowed Dan Wilson to pull on the leverage side of his bullpen, bringing out Matt Brash for the seventh. Brash had a bumpy spring but I thought he looked very sharp in his last outing against the A’s, and he was so again today, tossing an aesthetically pleasing 1-2-3 inning where the outs were recorded 6-3, 5-3, and 4-3: the infield defense version of an immaculate inning.

The A’s brought out Jack Leiter Jr. for the bottom of the seventh and with one out, J.P. Crawford poked a single through the right side of the infield. Cal Raleigh followed that up with a double deep into the right field corner (after it rolled past Carlos Cortes). J.P. had to hold up to see if Cortes would catch the ball so was only able to make it to third, but Julio Rodríguez was able to bring in the run anyway, shooting a ball at a drawn-in Jacob Wilson, who had to slide to snag the ball and opted for the safe out at first rather than the play at home.

With a narrow 4-3 lead, the Mariners turned to one of their leverage arms: that’s right, I speak of 6’6 Cooper Criswell, who can probably be used as a lever to move the world if necessary. Criswell pitched a clean 1-2-3 inning, setting up Andrés Muñoz for the ninth after the Mariners failed to add on in the bottom of the eighth. Rob Refsnyder, Certified Adult, put away the first out with a nice sliding catch that I’m not sure Luke Raley gets to, so another point for platoons today. But then Nick Kurtz did what Nick Kurtz does and socked a 2-2 slider from Muñoz to dead center for a game-tying home run.

Refsnyder making that catch turns out to be important, then, because instead of the A’s being ahead 5-4, the Mariners went into the ninth inning tied, facing the Mason Miller-less A’s. Joel Kuhnel just does not spark the same fear, as made manifest by Leo Rivas leading off the inning with a single against him. Unfortunately, J.P. Crawford grounded into a double play, putting the threat of extras on the table with the Mariners down to just recently-called-up Alex Hoppe left in the bullpen. But the big bats, which have been warming up this series, did what they needed to do. Back-to-back singles from Raleigh and Rodríguez put two on for Josh Naylor, who leapt on a first-pitch cutter for his first walkoff as a Mariner.

“It’s awesome,” said Naylor. “You work hard to get those results. It’s a hard game we play. It’s arguably the hardest sport we chose to play, and we’re idiots for choosing it, but we did, and we have decided to come to this ballpark every day and grind. Working hard is awesome; working hard with this group is even better.”

Oh, Josh. We’re all idiots for choosing it.