Mariners Takeaways: 3 observations from series loss to Toronto

The Seattle Mariners’ hot streak came to a screeching halt this weekend at T-Mobile Park.

The club’s run of nine straight series victories ended with a sweep at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays, who put an exclamation point on their series win with a 9-1 thumping of the M’s on Sunday.

MLB Standings

The Mariners remain in first place in the AL West at 22-17 despite the sweep, sitting two games in front of the Athletics and Houston Astros. They get perhaps their toughest test of the season so far next with the AL East-leading New York Yankees coming to town. But first, here are three observations from the Mariners’ series against Toronto.

Five and dive

The unexpected theme for the Mariners’ starting pitching continued this weekend as none of their three starters were able to get deep into games against Toronto. Logan Evans, Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller all lasted just five innings in their respective starts, leaving the already heavily used bullpen to cover 12 innings over three games. Well, really 11 since infielder Leo Rivas pitched the ninth inning of the series finale.

The Mariners probably aren’t expecting much more than five innings at this point from Evans, who was solid on Friday in just his third MLB start. However, they need to get more from Castillo and Miller. Castillo, the former ace of the staff, has gone five innings or less in five of his eight starts this season. Miller hasn’t reached six innings in any of his eight outings.

Miller seemed like he was on his way to bouncing back from a rough start to the year by his standards during Sunday’s game, but problems getting out of innings with two outs plagued the right-hander. He allowed three straight two-out singles to the bottom half of the Jays’ lineup to surrender a run in the second. With two outs in the fifth, Miller allowed a single to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., walked Addison Barger and then gave up a three-run home run to George Springer.

Miller and Castillo’s 13 combined outings of less than six innings are just shy of two-thirds of the 21 they combined to post all of last season, and Seattle still hasn’t quite hit the one-quarter mark of this campaign.

Muñoz gets rest

If there was anything positive that came out of this series for the Mariners, it’s that closer Andrés Muñoz didn’t have to pitch. Of course, that means they were never in position to close out any of these games, but their closer has been called upon a lot early on.

The M’s haven’t put too much stress on Muñoz in terms of what they’re asking him to do when he comes in. He’s been used strictly for one-inning appearances, unlike last season when he was used for four or more outs often early in the season. But he had still pitched in 18 of the club’s first 36 games heading into this series.

Muñoz has pitched back-to-back outings just three times, yet he had more than two days off between appearances just twice through the first six weeks of the season. The at least four days Muñoz will have between his last outing on Thursday against the A’s and his next outing will be the longest rest he’s had this year. The right-hander has a history of injury issues, so the M’s need to be at least somewhat cautious with the workload he’s taking on.

M’s lose the longball battle

For all the talk there has been about the Mariners’ ability to play small ball this year, the longball has really been what’s propelled this offense. However, they didn’t get enough of those against Toronto. In fact, they were out homered by a Blue Jays team that entered the series tied for last in the league with 26 homers.

The M’s hit just two home runs during the series, a pair of solo shots. And while there was tough luck in Friday’s game, which included the robbery of what would have been a home run for Ben Williamson, it felt as if the importance of the longball to the Mariners’ lineup was on full display over the weekend. With just the two solo home runs, Seattle combined for seven runs during the series – its least in a series of any length this year.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays hit four home runs in the series. The four homers included a two-run shot on Friday and three-run shot on Sunday that each helped them push their leads to five runs, and a two-run homer on Saturday that cut a three-run M’s lead down to one.

In total, the Blue Jays scored more runs off homers (eight) than the M’s scored overall through the series.

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