Mariners Lose Big Behind Pazos’s, Curtis’s Poor Outings

Despite a promising second start from the Mariners most committed starter, Hisashi Iwakuma, this spring training, a few of the M’s relievers cost the team a win due to their awful outings.

The day before his teammates are set to open their World Baseball Classic experience for their respective countries, Iwakuma was busy working on his game on the mound with the club that he is devoted to serving.

Iwakuma arrived early to spring camp and surpassed the WBC out of respect to his contract to the Seattle Mariners. Whether that commitment has anything to do with this being a team option contract season for Iwakuma is not known.

Nevertheless, he went out to throw today for the M’s instead of prepping with Team Japan for their third and final Pool B match versus China at 2 AM EST on March 10th and put in very respectable work.

Iwakuma went two innings while allowing one hit and one walk but struck out two men as well. Even after Iwakuma was replaced to start the third, it looked as though the game was going to be a pitcher’s duel, that was until the Mariners 26th ranked prospect and newcomer, James Pazos took the ball.

Before Pazos relieved, Ariel Miranda, of his pitching duties, the M’s pitching had only allowed one hit -that was a double that Iwakuma surrendered to leadoff the 2nd inning.

By the end of his nearly 20-minute top of the 4th inning, he finished with a line 1 IP, 4 ER, 4 H, 1 HR, and 2 K’s. In his first three innings of work over as many games, Pazos had allowed one hit and struck out two men.

In the next half of the frame, the Mariners would notch their first hit of the ballgame thanks to Kyle Seager who blasted a double in the gap but it would amount to nothing.

Ryan Weber would be the next reliever to try his luck against the Cleveland bats and would fair well in 5th. Unfortunately for him, the longer he was on the mound, the more the defending AL champions began to carve out hits and put runners on base.

Then with two outs, two strikes and the bases loaded, the fresh-out-of-the-dugout, Tuffy Gosewisch, dropped what would have been a caught foul ball to end the frame, instead, he couldn’t get the ball in his glove, thus allowing the inning to proceed.

On the very next pitch, the Indians scored two runs on a poorly thrown ball by Taylor Motter at short to bring in two runs.

Weber would finish the day with no earned runs allowed but would watch five more runs cross the plate in large part because of the runners he put on base in the 6th.

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It wouldn’t get much better for the man who was next in line to take the ball, Zac Curtis, who would only see six batters but allowed a walk and four hits that included two home runs, one of which was a grand slam.

Once Curtis was sent to the dugout the M’s were done giving the Indians a wider cushion. The three relievers allowed all of the Indians 14 runs to score against them -only eight were earned runs.

The Mariners would score six runs on this day but the 14 given up was tied for the most they had allowed all spring.

The M’s were battered late into the night with the game finishing at 10:32 PM PST. Taking that type of beating less than 14 hours before they must face the defending World Series champion, Chicago Cubs, doesn’t give the team a whole bunch of confidence.

Next: Some Mariners Finally See WBC Action

Thankfully for Mariners fans, the game will not be televised, so if the Mariners do get demolished for the second day in a row, this time on short rest, at least no one will have to see the team suffer through the loss… unless you’ll be at Sloan Park tomorrow for the first pitch at 12:10 PST.