Mariners Game Recap: M’s lose on walk-off walk in extras

Recent struggles continued to manifest themselves on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, where the Mariners continued to have trouble getting any offense going without the long ball.

Taking the hill for the Mariners was Nathan Karns (5-2, 4.09 ERA), and he would go against Drew Smyly (2-7, 4.94 ERA), who despite a spotty season thus far, has had his way against the Mariners in the past.

From the first pitch of the game, Karns was poised to limit the Rays to the bare minimum. Escaping troubles in the second and third innings, and only giving up a run on a Corey Dickerson sacrifice fly in the fourth, he seemed to be well on his way to another solid outing.

Just earlier in the top of the fourth, Nelson Cruz had hit a two-run homer to left center and given the Mariners the first lead of the game.

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The 2-1 score in favor of Seattle held until the bottom of the sixth inning, where Karns watched his great outing slip through his fingers and suddenly turn into a no-decision. With Vidal Nuno replacing Karns just a couple batters earlier, Dickerson came through for Tampa Bay once again, driving a single to right field to tie up the game at two runs apiece. Nothing more happened in the inning, but it was suddenly a new ballgame.

In the seventh inning, the Mariners threatened to take the lead, but Chris Iannetta was left on third and they continued to have issues knocking in those runs.

After shutting the Rays down in the seventh, the Mariners brought the heat once again in the eighth. Ketel Marte singled to lead off the inning and worked his way around to third with the help of groundouts by Seth Smith and Robinson Cano. Tampa Bay made the decision to intentionally walk Cruz in order to get to pinch-hitter Adam Lind, and this risk paid off when Erasmo Ramirez was able to force a groundout to end the inning.

Through the rest of regulation, both teams failed to score any runs so it continued into extra frames.

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The first dangerous moment of extra innings came in the bottom half of the 11th, when Nick Vincent walked Logan Forsythe with two outs. Steve Cishek was brought into the game to try and get the final out, but he ran into even more issues. Cishek walked the next two batters to load the bases. He maintained his composure though, and was able to get out of the jam to live another inning.

The 12th inning went by quickly, but the M’s faced problems in the bottom of the 13th. This time, they wouldn’t live to tell the tale. Mike Montgomery gave up a one-out triple to Forsythe, and everything from that moment forward went toward trying to prevent that run from scoring. Tim Beckham was hit by a pitch and Taylor Motter was walked to load the bases. The Mariners brought the infield in to cut down on the force out at home, but to no avail. Faced with a 3-2 count to Logan Morrison, Montgomery was unable to find the strike zone on a pitch that was beyond the outside corner.

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The winning run scored on the walk, and Montgomery had some words for home plate umpire Sean Barber. This did not matter though, as the M’s dropped the eighth of their last 11 games. The loss drops the Mariners to 34-31, while Tampa Bay inches closer and closer to .500. On Thursday, the Mariners will have to recover quickly for a 10 AM PST first pitch in the series finale and try to preserve one game from the series.