Suarez takes no-hit bid into seventh in win over Mariners

SEATTLE -- Count Ranger Suarez as someone who believes in jinxes.

Because in his eyes, he doomed himself -- and his bid for the Red Sox’s first no-hitter since Jon Lester’s in 2008 -- Friday at T-Mobile Park in Boston’s 6-2 win over the Mariners.

“When I was going into the seventh inning, it was the first time I thought about it,” Suarez said through interpreter Daveson Perez. “Once I realized that I was thinking about it, I knew it wasn’t going to happen. The first [six] innings, I was pitching well and I wasn’t thinking about it. Once I started thinking about it, it didn’t go the way I wanted.”

Indeed, after breezing through his first three passes through the Seattle order and holding the hosts hitless through 6 1/3 innings, Suarez finally allowed a double to the right-center-field gap to Josh Naylor.

But that would be just about all the left-hander allowed all night, finishing with five strikeouts and three walks in 6 2/3 scoreless frames.

“Really good overall. I had command of all my pitches and I was locating really well,” Suarez said. “Felt really good.”

Caught on a four-game skid, in a 4-10 month, staring down the possibility of falling 15 games under .500 for the first time since 2020, the Red Sox needed Suarez to be the $130 million stopper they signed as a centerpiece of their offseason.

Consider Friday a job well done in that regard, and then some.

The left-hander retired the first 13 batters he faced, losing his bid at perfection in the bottom of the fourth with a one-out walk to Cal Raleigh. After that, he retired the next eight Mariners, before walking Raleigh again in the bottom of the seventh. After Ceddanne Rafaela kept the no-hitter alive with a sliding catch in shallow center, Naylor's one-out double ended it.

After Suarez walked Cole Young to load the bases with two outs, interim manager Chad Tracy brought in Justin Slaten, who fanned J.P. Crawford to seal the scoreless outing for Suarez.

Coming into the day with a fastball that ranked in the league’s sixth percentile for velocity, Suarez’s stuff was even slower than normal Friday, with his four-seamer down 0.9 mph from his season average -- it topped out at 92.5 mph -- and his sinker down 1.3 mph.

But the Mariners had no answers for him all night long, whiffing 10 times -- at least once on each of his six pitch types -- and striking out looking thrice. Naylor’s double was the only ball the Mariners hit in the air with an exit velocity over 92 mph.

“I said to [pitching coach Andrew Bailey] when he was done, ‘That was really fun to watch,’” Tracy said. “It’s not 95, it’s anywhere from 89 to 92, but he sinks it in, he can front-door it, he’ll use the cutter, he goes up. I’ve said this about him a lot, but to watch him manipulate the strike zone with his stuff is really fun to watch.”

Caleb Durbin gave Suarez all the offense he would need in the top of the second, lifting a first-pitch fastball from Bryce Miller with a launch angle of 40 degrees and sending it just far enough to clear the wall in left field for his second home run in as many games. Then, after the Mariners swapped starting pitchers as part of their piggyback plan, the Sox took advantage, plating four runs in the seventh off Luis Castillo.

Tracy said after the game that those insurance runs gave Suarez a bit more leash to work with in terms of pitch count. By that point, pretty much everyone in the Red Sox dugout -- with the exception of Marcelo Mayer, who said afterward that he didn’t have any idea -- knew what was on the line.

“No one’s saying anything, no one’s talking about it,” said Durbin, who finished the day 3-for-4 at the plate. “But in your head, you know what’s going on.”

Durbin said he started thinking about the possibility of a no-hitter in the sixth inning. Catcher Carlos Narváez said his realization came in the fifth, watching Suarez get weak contact after weak contact.

“It’s always fun when you’ve got your pitcher locked in and executing, but that’s who he is,” Narváez said. “He’s always executing spots. When he needs to go down and away, he goes there. When he needs to go up and in, he goes there. That’s why he’s excellent.”

Suarez himself, of course, noticed in the middle of the seventh. And to hear him tell it, that’s why he lost it.

But with the month the Red Sox are having, in the season they’re having, a no-hitter jinx in a comfortable win is the type of bad luck they’ll be happy to live with.

“He was brilliant,” Tracy said. “It had a no-hit feel, the way he was going. I think he got a little gassed there at the end, but he was fantastic.”