Mariners secure series win over Braves behind more dominant pitching (2024)

Who’s next?

Well, that may be a little premature since the Mariners still have one more game remaining on this current homestand and have a chance to sweep the Atlanta Braves.

But with yet another drama-filled, 3-2 victory Tuesday night at T-Mobile Park, Seattle secured a series win over the Braves, taking the first two of the three-game set.

It was the Mariners’ fifth consecutive series victory, with the past three coming against the World Series champion Texas Rangers, the World Series runner-up Arizona Diamondbacks and the Braves, who haven’t lost back-to-back games since last season’s National League Division Series and are the popular pick to win the World Series in 2024.

They don’t get extra victories next to their record for beating good teams. But it still has some added meaning.

“I think it builds confidence within your clubhouse knowing that you can beat the best teams in the league,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “I saw a stat earlier today. I think of our first 29 games, we’ve played 23 of those against teams that are over .500. We’ve played a lot of good teams. That’s going to happen. You’re going to have stretches like this throughout and the fact that we’re winning series … it does breed a lot of confidence in that clubhouse.”

Their formula for success has remained the same in these series victories where they have amassed an 11-3 record.

It’s quality starting pitching, as always, combined with just enough offense, though the three runs scored against the Braves felt like a lot for them.

Luis Castillo delivered seven scoreless innings, allowing just three hits with a walk and seven strikeouts to improve to 3-4 on the season.

With his outing, the Mariners’ starters have allowed two earned runs or fewer in their last 18 consecutive outings, dating back to April 10. It extended their franchise record. The 18-game streak is the longest in Major League Baseball since the Dodgers’ 18-game streak from April 20-May 11, 2022.

“I’m a broken record up here every night,” Servais said about his starting pitching. “It’s hard to describe every night when we’re watching them. I’ve said to a couple of people, it’s like historic starting pitching. We’re on that kind of run.”

Castillo’s starts early in the season weren’t part of the historic run. They were suboptimal and a bit concerning. In his first three outings, he went 0-3 with a 6.89 ERA. In 15 2/3 innings, he allowed 12 earned runs on 25 hits with 18 strikeouts and four walks. Opponents had a .352/.387/.563 slash line against him. His pitches were missing over the middle of the plate, leading to hard contact and so many hits.

Following an outing against Toronto where both Servais and catcher Cal Raleigh were frustrated with the number of two-strike hits Castillo allowed, a discussion was needed.

“He wasn’t putting people away when he got ahead in the count,” Servais said. “He’s a killer. You have to take that attitude when you’re out there. When you get them 0-2 or 1-2, I’m killing you. You’re done. We just reminded him of that. That’s who he is. And when he does that, and he has that mentality out there, he’s electric.”

With a focus on missing off the plate, particularly with two strikes and a slight adjustment to his pitch usage, Castillo has returned to the expected form of one of the top pitchers in baseball.

Over his last four starts — all of them quality starts — he’s posted a 3-1 record with a 1.38 ERA.In 26 innings pitched, he’s allowed four earned runs on 16 hits with four walks and 31 strikeouts. Opponents are batting just .173 over that stretch.

“Since we talked in Toronto, I’ve went out with that mentality,” Castillo said through his interpreter Freddy Llanos. “I think that’s helped me.”

Seattle provided him just enough run support.

Jorge Polanco hit a two-run homer in the third inning off Atlanta starter Reynaldo Lopez and Dylan Moore added an RBI double in the fourth inning.

The Mariners offense mustered seven hits, struck out 11 times and stranded seven base runners.

“It’s not always pretty offensively, I get it,” Servais said. “We need to continue to get better there. But timely hitting covers up a lot of that. And when you have that kind of pitching, I mean you’re always going to be in the game. Our guys realize that.”

When Castillo exited after the seventh, the Braves offense finally got some runs — with the help of the Mariners.

Ryne Stanek came on to pitch the eighth. He allowed a soft single to right from Travis d’Arnaud and then threw a wild pitch to advance him to second. Polanco couldn’t make a tough play on Jarred Kelenic’s ground ball up the middle, firing it wide of first base and forcing Ty France to vacate the bag.

Stanek got Ronald Acuña to line out to right field, but Ozzie Albies drove in the Braves’ first run of the game with a crisp single to right to cut the lead to 3-1.

Servais decided turned to closer Andres Muñoz to try and stop the rally before a lead turned into a tie or deficit.

With runners on second and third, the Mariners intentionally walked Matt Olson to load the bases. With little margin for error, Muñoz made one in the field on Austin Riley’s swinging bunt in front of the mound. Raleigh didn’t want to vacate home with a runner on third to make a play on it. Muñoz picked it up and made an awkward throw over the head of France at first base. It allowed Kelenic to score and moved the runners up a base.

“We didn’t decide who was going to pick up the ball,” Muñoz said. “I was confused if he was going to pick it up or I was going to pick it up. As I grabbed the ball, I saw the runner on the line where I was supposed to throw. I didn’t even know where was the best place to throw the ball.”

Raleigh admitted he should have screamed at his pitcher to not throw it.

With everything swirling out of control, Muñoz didn’t relax. He got mad and was going to make sure no more runs would score. He came back to strike out Marcell Ozuna and got Orlando Arcia to hit a soft ground ball to shortstop that Moore was able to field and fire to first off balance for the final out of the inning.

“I was really disappointed when I made that error because I don’t want to affect the game and I don’t want to affect the outings of the other pitchers,” he said. “I took the anger that I had in that moment to the mound and attacked the hitter.”

Muñoz dealt with no such drama in the ninth, working a 1-2-3 inning to close out the victory.

“Timely hits and awesome pitching,” Servais said. “That’s been the recipe.”

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