HOUSTON — Sometimes, you’re overpowered by a superior team that leaves you reeling but not regretful.
Sometimes, a bad call or unlucky bounce sways your good fortune and has you wondering what might have been.
Sometimes, an epic back-and-forth ends with a defeat that you can stomach knowing everything was left on the field.
And sometimes … sometimes you flat-out choke.
ALDS Game 1
Astros 8, Mariners 7
This column isn’t meant to bully or berate the Mariners after their 8-7 loss to the Astros on Tuesday. It’s not an attempt to exacerbate the emotional injury everyone on the roster is enduring after that agonizing Game 1 of the American League Division Series.
This is simply recognizing the reality that Seattle’s unraveling could go down as the biggest collapse in club history. They had it. They blew it … like they never have before.
Through the first 53 outs of the game, it seemed the story was going to be about how the Mariners sent jolts of fear through each of the Astros’ spines. Facing the surefire American League Cy Young winner Justin Verlander, wunderkind Julio Rodriguez and his cohorts scored six runs through the first four innings. It was only the second time in Verlander’s career that he had allowed that many runs in a postseason game, and the shellacking sparked Houston manager Dusty Baker to pull him after four innings.
In essence, the Mariners beat up the toughest guy in the prison yard to establish their dominance — getting production from almost every weapon in their offense to go up 6-3 after four frames. They made it 7-3 in the seventh when third baseman Eugenio Suarez ripped a 359-foot homer to left field.
This club was beelining toward the label of “America’s Team” — the playoff-starved organization that came back from seven runs down vs. the Blue Jays three nights earlier, the pennant-less franchise led by a riveting rookie in Rodriguez, who hit a double and triple off Verlander before falling one-foot shy of a home run in the ninth.
But now it’s that other label that seems most salient — the one that says this team’s championship hopes are forever destined to be dashed.
It started in the bottom of the eighth, when Mariners manager Scott Servais called on reliever Andres Munoz. Seemed reasonable. Having given up just one run in his past 15 outings, Munoz had been the star of the Mariners’ standout bullpen. Then, after Yordan Alvarez singled, Alex Bregman slugged a 403-foot bomb to left center off Munoz to make it 7-5.
No worries. Munoz got out of the inning, and Paul Sewald — the man who led Mariners in saves (20) and WHIP (0.766) — was available in the ninth. Then, after hitting rookie pinch-hitter David Hensley and allowing a single to Jeremy Pena, Sewald was pulled with two outs for, wait — Robbie Ray?
Um, again … no worries. This is the 2021 American League Cy Young Winner we’re talking about. No, Ray hadn’t pitched an inning of relief this season. And yeah, he’d gotten rocked in his past two starts, including the playoff outing Saturday when he gave up four earned runs in three innings vs. Toronto. But this was different. This was special. This was … the moment Alvarez hit a three-run, game-winning homer off Ray’s second pitch of the night.
The crowd at Minute Maid Park could be heard from Dallas to New Orleans. Understandable given how this was just the second time in MLB playoff history (Kirk Gibson in 1988) that there’d been a walkoff home run with a team down to its final out.
But the silence in the Mariners clubhouse made a funeral look like a frat house. The only guy making any kind of noise was Sewald, who walked into the room cursing to himself.
“We had the lead and coughed it up,” said Sewald, who expressed frustration at himself and said he was “shocked” that Ray gave up the homer. “It shouldn’t have gotten to Robbie. That’s how I feel.”
Ray wasn’t quite as loquacious.
What was your approach on the pitch?
“I was just trying to get the sinker on him, it just didn’t get there,” he said.
What’s going through your head right now?
“Just frustrated.”
There are few things easier than questioning a manager’s decision after the catastrophe, but Servais is fair game here. Sewald might have given up a single and a walk, but he also had two strikes on the hitters who reached base and struck out eight-time All Star Jose Altuve. Plus, there were other shutdown relievers in the bullpen such as Erik Swanson. Or, Matthew Boyd, if Servais wanted the lefty-lefty matchup.
But he went with Ray.
It didn’t work.
The truth is, the Mariners aren’t going to get another chance like this. They put up six runs on the best pitcher in the American League, added a seventh, and then relinquished a four-run lead in two innings to a team that won 106 games.
The Astros are breathless due to one of the most clutch moments in playoff history. The Mariners are breathless due to the constriction around their necks.