KANSAS CITY -- The Mariners hit the one-third mark of their season Sunday and find themselves on a 75-win pace with a 25-29 record. That’s far from where they had hoped to be, and a big part of the problem has been their inability to handle the Kansas City Royals.
With an 8-6 loss to the Royals in the series finale, Seattle fell to 1-5 against a Kansas City team that is nine games under .500. The Royals have struggled with production from the middle of the order, but No. 4 hitter Salvador Perez came through in a telling sequence against Mariners’ starter Bryan Woo in the fifth inning to set a definitive tone for Seattle’s latest woes against Kansas City.
With the Mariners holding a 1-0 lead and Woo having looked sharp through four innings, the Royals put men at second and third with nobody out in the fifth. A walk to Michael Massey and a throwing error by Woo created the predicament. Woo got the next two hitters out before Vinnie Pasquantino was intentionally walked after Woo fell behind with a 2-0 count. Perez went after the first pitch in the ensuing at-bat, and drilled a two-run single that served as the springboard for a four-run rally. Woo didn’t make it out of the fifth and the Mariners, despite showing some life offensively in the latter portion of the game, could never get over the hump.
After being swept by the Royals recently in Seattle, the Mariners wanted to make amends over the weekend at Kauffman Stadium. But after taking the series opener on Friday, the Mariners didn’t have many answers over the next two games.
The silver lining for Seattle on Sunday was rookie Colt Emerson's 4-for-4 day at the plate. Emerson, who was called up from Tacoma on May 17, had three doubles and a single. The Mariners can envision that being a sign of things to come for the highly touted third baseman.
“I went up there committed to a plan,” Emerson said. “I have my plan, my approach and I’m going to stay stubborn to it.”
The left-handed-hitting Emerson saw three of his hits go to left field and he also sprinkled in a line-drive double to right.
“I like to use the whole field,” Emerson said. “If they throw a pitch outside, I’m going to take it the other way.”
It has been a whirlwind week for Emerson since getting the call to join the Major League club.
“The first few days were pretty quick and super exciting,” Emerson said. “The last three in this series, I’ve kind of settled in and it has been real baseball to me. It’s just good to be in this [Mariners] clubhouse. There are great guys here supporting me. It’s pretty easy to play when you have guys like this who have your back.”
The only thing that could have made Emerson’s 4-for-4 day more complete would have been doing it in a Seattle victory. The Pasquantino intentional walk and the Perez two-run single in the fifth proved to be momentum builders for the Royals.
“We talked about it on the bench,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “If we got behind [Pasquantino], we were going to put him on there and pitch to Salvy with a fresh count. Salvy went up there and was aggressive with the first pitch.”
Woo took responsibility for the manner in which the fifth inning unfolded.
“I didn’t know they were going to [intentionally walk Pasquantino], but it is what it is,” Woo said. “It’s on me for falling behind 2-0. Go ahead and attack him and you don’t have to walk him. It’s my job to get Salvy out and I didn’t do that. So, it’s on me.”