ARLINGTON -- The door remained closed for a full half hour on Friday afternoon, if not longer.
It wasn’t that the gathering of those inside was sealed off, as hitters meetings always are. No, it was the length of the confab that illustrated there was more significance to this assembly within the visitors' clubhouse at Globe Life Field.
A little over 24 hours earlier, the Mariners parted ways with assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes, a voice of trust among players and respect among Seattle’s coaches. Friday’s meeting appeared to be the platform with which manager Dan Wilson and his staff detailed the decision and the outlook ahead.
Because for those asked about the move, both on the record and in passing, the prevailing sense was surprise.
“It's all in front of us,” Wilson said. “We'll continue to turn dials and try to find -- every day, in the scheme -- to try to get better. That's what we're trying to continue to do, is get better and get more consistent.”
Details of what led to the decision remain murky, but it’s clear that the notion of a shakeup was an essential factor. Yet, in the immediate aftermath of the transition, many of the Mariners’ offensive issues remained -- and at the outset of arguably their most critical series of the season to this point.
A few hours later, Seattle dropped its four-game series opener at Texas -- a 5-4 defeat that was differentiated by the winning team getting a few big homers and the other putting together a few timely hits but not enough.
Weston Wilson put the Mariners on the board with an opposite-field, RBI single in the second inning, setting up a bases-loaded opportunity for Randy Arozarena, though he grounded out.
The best at-bat of the night came from Dominic Canzone, who grinded four tough fouls in a left-on-left matchup against MacKenzie Gore then punched one into the left-center gap and to the wall, tying the game at 3 in the fifth.
Alas, the Mariners fell to 8-28 when they have not homered, compared to 43-25 when they have.
“Everybody is doing their job and trying to grind and doing everything they need to prepare for the game,” Canzone said. “And when you're just not getting the results you want as a team, it's very frustrating. I think everybody can sense that.”
Canzone was as close as any Mariners hitter to Magallanes and was on the cusp of emotion when discussing his departure.
“He was the guy that I was with pretty much all the time,” Canzone said, “and since I've been doing a lot of DH'ing, he was the guy that was my mentor. So yeah, just brutal.”
Canzone also reflected on Friday’s meeting.
“We just tried to reflect on how great of a person he was, and kind of what he brought,” Canzone said. “So, yeah, that's all I'm going to say.”
The Mariners matched the Rangers with 10 hits, and answered upon Texas taking each of its first two leads. But the two big flies vs. Bryce Miller, and the two inherited runners he left Eduard Bazardo upon departing with one out in the sixth dug too deep of a hole.
“It's one of those games where I feel like the results very easily could have gone differently,” said Miller, who gave up a solo homer to Wyatt Langford in the first inning, then a two-run shot to Jake Burger in the fourth. “And if I execute a pitch here or there, then we're looking at it in a much different perspective.”
For the first time in 86 career starts, Miller had zero strikeouts. The homer to Langford was on a splitter that did not drop from the middle of the strike zone, while the blast to Burger was on an 0-2, well-executed fastball notably above the zone.
It was the one-out, broken-bat single to Brandon Nimmo and his first walk of the night, to Evan Carter, that ended his outing, which positioned Texas to pull ahead for good vs. Bazardo.
The pivot reliever surrendered a first-pitch, up-the-middle single to Burger then a perfectly executed squeeze bunt to Nicky Lopez, in which Bazardo attempted to toss to Cal Raleigh but the ball came loose as he corralled it.
“This is a game that I think we should have won,” Miller said, “and if I go out and execute and at least finish the sixth, we're in a good spot and we're in a little better chance to win.”