SEATTLE — Virtually eliminated from the AL wild-card race for the past week, the Seattle Mariners made it official Sunday.
A 4-2 defeat at the hands of the Cleveland Indians — a loss that followed Minnesota’s victory over Detroit — reduced Seattle’s long-shot chance of qualifying for a wild-card bid to zero. Baseball’s longest playoff drought is now 16 years.
“The finality of it all hurts,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said after the Mariners record fell to 75-81. “I thought we did an unbelievable job this year to kind of hang in there. As water was coming into the boat, we kept throwing it out, trying to keep afloat.
“It says a lot for our guys to keep it up for as long as we did, struggling through pitching injuries. What we did this year, using 40 different guys, is unheard of. When you battle so long like that, you get to the point you kind of just run out of gas.”
In a game that mirrored their season, the Mariners got another serviceable start from veteran right-hander Mike Leake, who surrendered three runs before Shae Simmons was brought in to relieve him with two out in the top of the seventh. But three runs was too many against Tribe ace Cory Kluber, a co-favorite to win the A.L. Cy Young Award for the second time.
Kluber (18-4) wasn’t flawless. He allowed a Ben Gamel homer with a man on in the fifth, and at least one base runner in five of the seven innings he worked.
But 10 strikeouts — his 15th double-digit strikeout effort of the season — enabled the right-hander to escape further trouble. So did some spectacular defense in the fourth inning, when Yonder Alonso hit a liner to deep center with two on and one out.
Former Mariners center fielder Austin Jackson made a running catch before relaying the ball to shortstop Francisco Lindor.
Lindor then delivered a dart to first base, a split second ahead of Kyle Seager, who as attempting to return after the catch.
“It changed momentum, changed everything there,” Servais said of the inning-ending double play. “It took an absolutely perfect relay throw to get him.”
An absolutely perfect throw got him.
The Mariners 2017 season, in a nutshell.
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