Mariners suddenly have major crack in the bullpen bridge to Andrés Muñoz

The Seattle Mariners lost on Wednesday, which was bad enough given that the three teams in their immediate vicinity in the American League playoff race all won. And something about Matt Brash being the one to take the L made it feel even worse.

The Mariners had just taken a 4-3 lead on the Kansas City Royals following J.P. Crawford's go-ahead homer in the top half of the eighth, which set Brash up to do what he does best: put up a clean inning to position Andrés Muñoz to get the save.

Instead, the 27-year-old righty got his butt handed to him in an eventual 7-5 loss that snapped the Mariners' 10-game win streak. Royals hitters worked Brash for four runs on four hits and a walk, with former Mariner Adam Frazier providing the big blow with a two-run homer. Brash got only two outs.

You hate to see it, and the Mariners have been seeing too much of this from Brash lately.

Matt Brash is cracking when the Mariners need him most

It is only fair to note that Brash did suffer from some bad luck on Wednesday. Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen both scorched hits off him, but Bobby Witt Jr.'s RBI double was a broken bat bloop and Frazier's home run was one for the "You Gotta Be Kidding Me" file.

It was only 93.3 mph off the bat, putting it 1.7 mph short of registering as a hard-hit ball. It also traveled just 338 feet, only clearing the fence because Frazier was able to keep it fair down the left-field line.

However, Brash's meltdown was not a blip. He's mostly been human since he surrendered his first earned run of the year on June 30, posting a 4.33 ERA with 29 hits and 11 walks allowed over 27.0 innings.

A bit of inevitable regression? Sure, that scans. But fatigue also seems to be playing a role, as Brash's average sinker has been down from a peak of 97.2 mph in July to just 96.0 mph so far in September.

The sinker is not Brash's primary pitch, but he still needs it to keep hitters from sitting on his slider. The reduced velocity doesn't seem to be helping, as hitters are batting .400 against Brash's sinker with a reduced swing rate against his slider so far in September.

The Mariners haven't lost confidence in Brash, with manager Dan Wilson telling Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times and others after Wednesday's game: “Matty’s been here before. He will bounce back, and he’s the guy we wanted in that situation, and he’ll be ready to pitch.”

And yet, this is about the time of year one would expect Brash to run out of gas. It isn't uncommon in September, and he has the added difficulty of this being his first year back from Tommy John surgery. To this end, the Mariners have asked him a lot by tasking him with 50 appearances since May 3.

Hopefully, the Mariners will not only hold on and make the playoffs, but do Brash the solid of making it in as the AL West champs and the No. 2 seed. That way, the first-round bye would give him a couple extra days to recover.

The Mariners will need many things to go right if they want to finally get to the World Series, and having the Matt Brash who's capable of annihilating even elite hitters is one of them.