HOUSTON — His back turned to the infield, his head tilted skyward, Adam Frazier sprinted into the outfield attempting to make the play on a Jeremy Pena pop up in the sixth inning.
Julio Rodriguez gave chase from center field too.
“I thought I had it,” said Frazier, Mariners second baseman said. “You look up and there’s a truck running at you, though, and you kind of hesitate and that’s what happened. I think he did the same.”
The ball dropped in for a bloop single with two outs, putting Pena at first as the tying run.
It was the most pivotal sequence in Thursday’s Game 2 of the American League Division Series.
ALDS Game 2:
Astros 4, Mariners 2
Two pitches later, Yordan Alvarez homered off Luis Castillo to give the Astros a lead in their eventual 4-2 victory to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the series.
“Yeah, Pena getting on base in front of Yordan certainly makes it a little bit more challenging,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.
The pitch Pena hit was a 98 mph fastball on the inside corner.
“Luis made a great pitch,” Servais said. “This game’s a game of inches. They had a few things go their way today, and that happens. We did not. My bet is it will probably flip when we go to Seattle.”
As the blooper dropped in, Castillo turned and crouched and was visibly frustrated, knowing he’d have to then pitch to Alvarez with a runner on. It’s a much different situation than if Alvarez had lead off the next inning with nobody on base.
“I mean, it’s something that happens in baseball. It can happen to anybody,” Castillo said through translator Freddy Llanos. “I wasn’t frustrated or anything like that. I just kept calm and was able to finish my outing and I feel like I had a good outing.”
Fresh in the minds of Frazier and Rodriguez on the Pena pop up was one of the most critical plays of the Mariners’ season: J.P. Crawford’s bloop double in Toronto last Saturday that scored three runs, including Frazier from first base as the tying run.
In a scary scene, Toronto’s George Springer and Bo Bichette collided attempting to catch the Crawford pop up. Springer had to be carted off the field.
“It’s just a tough play,” Rodriguez said. “Whenever you’ve got two guys running straight at each other with the ball in the middle — it’s not like I’m happy that it dropped, but I’m happy that no type of injury happened.
“… We all saw what happened in Toronto. We’ve got a lot more baseball to play still.”
Frazier and Rodriguez said they talked later about trying to communicate better on the play. But, Frazier said, bloopers are just part of the game too.
“Some days it falls. Some days it doesn’t,” he said. “It’s not like it’s an easy play for him or for myself. We both gave it our all going after it.”