Mariners already have a crucial imperative after painful Opening Day flop

Dreams of the Seattle Mariners going 162-0 are no more. They got shattered by the Cleveland Guardians on Opening Day, and that was in part because they took advantage of the new ABS system, while the Mariners did not.

In the Mariners' 6-4 loss to the Guardians on Thursday, the only two ABS challenges in the game were by Cleveland. One was an obvious frustration challenge by Steven Kwan, which predictably didn't work. The other was a challenge by catcher Bo Naylor against Cole Young, which did.

The call Naylor challenged (a ball on a 2-2 changeup that turned a 3-2 count into a strikeout) is a solid example of how the ABS can influence momentum. Had Young walked or gotten a hit, he would have scored following a subsequent walk by Leo Rivas and double by Brendan Donovan. Instead, the Mariners came up empty.

Hopefully, the Mariners learned their lesson. Especially you, Cal Raleigh.

Cal Raleigh's ABS reluctance spelled trouble the Mariners must solve going forward

Though no Mariners challenged anything on Thursday, Raleigh had the two most notable non-challenges:

• 8th inning, catching: A 3-1 fastball called ball four to Rhys Hoskins
• 8th inning, batting: A 2-2 slider called strike three

With the Mariners down 5-4 and still in possession of both their challenges, the latter was an obvious situation to use one of them. And you could see Raleigh think about it after home-plate umpire Lance Barksdale made his call, only to walk away back to the dugout — challenges have to be made immediately, or umpires won't grant them.

As per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com, Raleigh admitted after the game that he should have challenged that call. As for why he didn't, he alluded to needing to get "accustomed" to the ABS and how nobody on the team "wants to be selfish."

In Raleigh's defense, he didn't get much of a chance to get his ABS impulses in order during spring training. He spent much of the spring with Team USA for the World Baseball Classic, which rather famously did not use the ABS.

As with his bullpen management on Thursday night, the buck should instead stop with Mariners manager Dan Wilson.

After the game, he repeated Raleigh's point about the ABS being new and that the impulse to challenge calls will take a while to come naturally. But this frankly needed to be a point of emphasis during spring training, and it seemingly wasn't. Not for batters, anyway, as Mariners hitters ranked in the bottom 10 of the league in challenges during Cactus League play.

“We’ve talked about it and we’ll remind the guys as much as we can about using the challenges,” Wilson said, as per Cameron Van Til of Seattle Sports. “And when they’re close, that’s when they’ll definitely be used, and especially late in the game.”

Hopefully, what happened Thursday will get the point across that those conversations haven't yet. As much as nobody wants to lose any challenges, not using them at all is even worse.