Mariners Give Up 5 Home Runs in 11-1 Loss to the Dodgers

The third largest regular season crowd in Safeco Field history watched the Mariners get absolutely crushed by the Dodgers.  Not all of the 47,796 fans at Safeco were disappointed, as cheers for the Dodgers echoed throughout the stadium after each of the 5 Dodger home runs. For what seems like series after series at Safeco Field, the opposing team’s fans made Safeco Field their own.

The Los Angeles Dodgers came to Seattle losing 5 of their last 6 games, and the Mariners were looking forward to taking advantage of their recent skid.  This was in no way what the Mariners did as Wade LeBlanc took the mound to face hard-throwing pitcher, Walker Buehler, and the Dodgers.

LeBlanc’s 2^nd pitch of the game, to Brian Dozier, was a near 400 foot fly ball to center field that pushed Cameron Maybin all the way back to the wall. That deep fly ball was truly foreshadowing of what was to come, but even with that hard contact, LeBlanc cruised through the 1^st and 2^nd.  Wade ended the 2^nd inning by striking out Max Muncy with a nasty breaking ball.

Like the Dodgers, the Mariners had very few chances to score in the 1^st or 2^nd inning against Buehler.  As LeBlanc cruised into the 3^rd inning, Dodgers catcher, Yasmani Grandal crushed a solo home run.  LeBlanc shook off the solo shot, and managed to get out of the 3^rd inning only down by 1 run.

The bottom of the 3^rd inning was the only real Mariners offensive threat of the night.  Thanks to a Brian Dozier error, Mitch Haniger was able to get into 2^nd base with only 1 out.  This error was followed by two consecutive walks to Robinson Cano and Nelson Cruz.  The bases were loaded with only 1 out, but the Mariners were unable to capitalize.  Denard Span hit into a fielder’s choice, and Kyle Seager hit a fly ball to the warning track.

After wasting the bases loaded situation in the 3^rd, Leblanc gave up another solo home run, but this time to Manny Machado.  Things were still looking okay, until Max Muncy stepped into the batter’s box to face LeBlanc for the 2^nd time.  In the previous at-bat, Muncy was fooled by Leblanc, but this at-bat he turned on a hanging 0-2 breaking ball and sent it to the seats in right field for a 2-run home run.  After the top of the 4^th inning the Dodgers led the Mariners 4-0.

In the bottom of the 4^th, Ryon Healy would deliver the only Mariners run of the night with an opposite field solo home run.  That would be the entire extent of the Mariners offense for the night, but the Dodgers were just getting started.

In the top of the 5^th, LeBlanc would give up a walk, a single to Justin Turner, and then a RBI single to Cody Bellinger.  After that, LeBlanc’s night would be done.  He left the game having given up 5 runs in 4 innings of work.  Christian Bergman came on to replace LeBlanc. Thanks to a Mitch Haniger error on a slicing fly ball to right, hit by Matt Kemp, another run would score.  The Dodgers would put up one more run on an Enrique Hernandez sacrifice fly.  After the 5^th inning, the Dodgers had broken the game open leading 7-1.

The Dodgers scoring campaign didn’t end there.  The Dodgers would smash two more 2-run home runs.  In the 7^th inning. Machado crushed his 2^nd home run of the night, this time a 2-run shot, and Matt Kemp added another 2-run shot to increase the Dodgers lead to 11-1.

The Dodgers turned Safeco Field into “The Home Run Derby”, while the Mariners’ offense struggled to get base runners against the young pitcher for the Dodgers, Walker Buehler. It was “Fireworks Night” at Safeco Field, but sadly the only fireworks on the field came from the Dodgers’ bats.

In a night where the Mariners could’ve gained ground on the Astros and kept pace with the Athletics, they have now fallen to 3.5 games behind the Athletics for the 2^nd Wild Card.

Tomorrow will be another important game as Erasmo Ramirez will take the mound tomorrow against Rich Hill of the Dodgers on Saturday at 7:10pm.