TORONTO -- As he gathered himself after an awkward tumble in the first inning on Friday night, Emerson Hancock knew right away that something was off.
The Mariners’ right-hander had just made a diving tag for his first out of the night, lunging at Toronto’s Nathan Lukes along the first-base line. He shook his head as he got up, at which point manager Dan Wilson and head athletic trainer Kyle Torgerson came out to confer.
Hancock threw a few warmup pitches and felt good enough to remain in the game. But he said after Seattle’s 8-1 loss that it’s a situation he and the club will monitor.
“I think it's just something we'll give a little bit of time, and we'll see tomorrow how it feels,” Hancock said.
In the play’s immediate aftermath, Hancock gave up three runs in the first inning -- erasing the brief lead that Dominic Canzone gave him with a massive solo homer off Dylan Cease -- then two solo homers in the fifth, from Lukes and George Springer.
Toronto tagged him immediately after the tumble on an RBI double from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that chopped over third baseman J.P. Crawford, ricocheted off the wall in foul territory and into no man’s land in left field. Then, Springer reached on an infield single to shortstop Brock Rodden, whose errant throw to first base set up Kazuma Okamoto for a sacrifice fly and Andrés Giménez for an RBI single.
Without the error, Hancock might’ve escaped the first with just one run instead of three.
His final line featured five earned runs, his most since surrendering the same in a June 20 loss to Boston. Then, Seranthony Domínguez and Michael Rucker were tagged for three more.
That put this one out of reach -- on a night where runs were always going to be difficult to come by against Cease, who’s in the thick of the AL Cy Young Award conversation.
“He's been tough all season long and was around the zone tonight,” Wilson said of Cease, whose velocity and swing-and-miss were down, though he was still able to generate eight strikeouts. “I thought we tried to put pitches on him. We were trying to get deep into at-bats, which he did a good job of. But he was able to get us out and didn't allow us any kind of a major threat at any point.”
The Mariners have big-picture concerns in the playoff race, as they tumbled to four games back of both first place in the AL West and for the final AL Wild Card spot.
But the immediate focus will be on Hancock, who said that he could feel the effects of the groin while grinding through this one -- but not to the point where he felt like it was impacting his performance.
“If you feel like you can go out there and compete and throw the ball, then that's what I wanted to do,” Hancock said. “I just said I wanted to go. Like, if it gets worse, if something gets a little too bad where you can't go out there and compete, then I'll say something. But at the same time, I wanted the ball and I wanted to just kind of keep going.”
Had Hancock been forced to exit, it could’ve been cataclysmic for the Mariners’ bullpen as they embarked on a stretch of 10 games with no off-days. That includes their longest charter of the season -- from Boston to Seattle -- looming after Wednesday’s game, leading right into a homestand beginning Thursday.
Yes, they still have Bryce Miller stretched out. But they also just moved him to the bullpen, largely due to his midsummer struggles.
They needed whatever they could get from Hancock without compromising his health and/or their chances for success -- both in this game and the rest of the road trip.
“He continued to feel pretty good,” Wilson said. “The velo was there, and we felt like he continued to throw the ball pretty well. And I think we felt comfortable with where he was at.”