CINCINNATI — A quick glance at the Mariners’ pitching line tells you everything you need to know about this game: eight innings, eight hits allowed, six runs, one strikeout, four walks and four hit batters.
Spoiler alert: It was not a good day for Mariners pitching.
Rookie Bryan Woo had one of his worst starts of the season, and the Mariners have dropped three of their first four games on this 10-game trip after a 6-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Monday afternoon at Great American Ball Park.
Trailing 6-2, the Mariners rallied in the ninth inning. J.P. Crawford singled to drive in Ty France with two outs, bringing up Julio Rodriguez as the tying run.
Rodriguez struck out looking at a fastball at the bottom of the zone to end the game.
The Mariners (77-60) have lost consecutive games for the first time in three weeks, falling back into a first-place tie atop the AL West.
Woo was uncharacteristically wild early.
He hit the second batter he faced, TJ Friedl, with a wayward cutter in the dirt.
He hit the fifth batter he faced, Nick Martini, with another wayward cutter in the dirt.
Friedl would come around to score on an Elly De La Cruz two-out single, the first of two runs for the Reds in the first inning.
Woo hit another batter — former Mariners top prospect Noelvi Marte — on the first pitch of the second inning.
Marte would come around to score on Spencer Steer’s three-run home run to center field that was just out of the reach of Rodriguez, who jumped and stretched over the wall trying in vain to make the home-run-robbing catch.
That made it 5-0.
Woo did settle down after that, retiring nine of 10 during one stretch (the only runner reaching on an error). He threw 83 pitches in five innings, with 49 strikes, walking three batters, hitting three batters and not recording any strikeouts.
On a bullpen day for the Reds, Seattle’s offense struggled to generate any momentum against six Cincinnati pitchers.
Rodriguez homered in the fourth inning, his 25th of the season, making him the first player in MLB history with 25 homers and 25 steals in each of his first two seasons.
Mike Ford added a solo homer in the fifth inning, his 15th.
The Mariners, trailing 5-2, did bring the tying run to the plate in the sixth inning with two outs. But Eugenio Suarez struck out to end the inning with two runners in scoring position.
Suarez was 0 for 4 with a throwing error in his return to Cincinnati.
In the seventh inning, Josh Rojas drew a two-out walk, Cal Raleigh had a pinch-hit single and J.P. Crawford was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Julio Rodriguez against Reds right-hander Lucas Sims.
After fouling off three 1-2 pitches, Rodriguez swung through a high fastball out of the zone for strike three, ending the inning and the Mariners’ last best chance at a rally.
The Reds’ seven pitchers combined for 10 strikeouts and only one walk — the kind of pitching line the Mariners have come accustomed to seeing from their own staff.
Not this time.
