This story was originally published by Dead Spin
The Seattle Mariners got hits Tuesday from three players — Tyler Locklear, Jason Vosler and Cade Marlowe — who weren’t with the club when the week began.
While that trio went 3-for-9, the holdovers were 0-for-20 in a 5-1 loss to the visiting Los Angeles Angels.
The Angels will go after a sweep of the three-game series against the American League West co-leaders on Wednesday afternoon.
“We’re going through it right now,” said Mariners manager Scott Servais, whose team has lost seven of its past eight games and has gone 9-19 since holding a 10-game division lead on June 18. “These things happen throughout the course of season — the ups and downs — and we’re gonna keep grinding through it. Certainly with a couple of our key players out of the lineup right now and some new faces in there, everybody’s got to step it up a little bit.”
Locklear, Vosler and Marlowe were all called up from Triple-A Tacoma over the past couple of days as center fielder Julio Rodriguez (high right ankle sprain) and shortstop J.P. Crawford (broken right pinkie) were placed on the 10-day injured list and first baseman Ty France was designated for assignment after clearing waivers.
“If you would have told us … that we’d be right here with 60 games left and the schedule that we have coming up, I would take that every time,” said Mariners All-Star pitcher Logan Gilbert, who took the loss on Tuesday, though four of the five runs he allowed in 6 2/3 innings were unearned.
“I would take that chance with what we’ve got right here in this clubhouse. I love it and love the guys in here. Obviously we’re not playing well, not playing to the best of our abilities. But if you told me at the beginning of the season (that) this is our chance right now, I would take that every time.”
The Angels won their third in a row and prevailed for the sixth time in eight games as right-hander Jose Soriano gave up just one run on three hits in 7 2/3 innings and Luis Rengifo had a two-run single in his return from the injured list.
“He was outstanding and we needed everything he gave us,” Angels manager Ron Washington said of Soriano. “He was able to go out there and have some nice innings. He did a tremendous job because we needed (him) to go as deep as he went.”
Any chance Mike Trout might have returned for the series finale were dashed when the Angels’ star center fielder left his first rehab appearance with Triple-A Salt Lake after two innings on Tuesday with soreness in his surgically repaired left knee.
The Wednesday pitching matchup features a pair of right-handers, the Angels’ Griffin Canning (3-10, 5.20 ERA) against Seattle’s Luis Castillo (8-10, 3.55).
Canning is 2-2 with a 2.97 ERA in six career starts against the Mariners, while Castillo is 5-1 with a 2.90 ERA in eight starts against Los Angeles. The two faced off on June 2 in Seattle, with the Mariners prevailing 5-1. Canning gave up one run on four hits in 6 2/3 innings while Castillo allowed two hits over seven scoreless innings.
–Field Level Media
