Tonight’s 6-4 loss to Anaheim was really more about the quality of the pitching than it was about the quality of the offense. But in 2026, that means the Angels were better.
Kade Anderson continued his struggles against MLB hitting, as you’d technically have to call the Anaheim lineup. After starting off well enough with a strikeout of Zach Neto, Anderson surrendered hard contact three times in a row to let the Angels take an early 2-0 lead. The top of the lineup got to him again in the third with a leadoff single scoring on a line drive down the left field line. Neto turned that line drive into a triple thanks to some lackadaisical play by Randy Arozarena. Since Neto was now on third, he scored on a sac fly to bring the lead to 4-0.
Yet again, Anderson was unable to induce chase on pitches outside the zone, even against one of the chase-happiest lineups. He exacerbated that problem tonight with some truly wild command. In turn, he overcompensated by throwing too many right down the chute. Basically, he was serving up two varieties of beef tonight: meatballs and sloppy joes.
Somehow, he didn’t walk anyone tonight and struck out five, but it was utterly unpersuasive. Here’s a good example, a nine-pitch sequence to Kyren Paris, he of the career wRC+ of 46. It was ultimately a strikeout, but this could easily have gone so wrong against even a moderately competent hitter.
I realize this is a pretty harsh review of the Aceman, but I’m not that worried long-term. The level of success he had in the minors has too few precedents for it not to translate at all. It’s going to take some adjustments, but I’m confident he’ll make them, especially with an offseason to reflect on what seems like the first time in his baseball life he’s ever been challenged. Better that he get the chance to sort this out amid this clusterjam of a season than in games that might matter.
At any rate, Anderson got the hook with one out in the fifth and a runner on base. Cooper Criswell came in and jammed up Jose Siri, but the weak contact dropped into no man’s land, setting up a two-RBI single before the fifth was over.
The Angels’ six runs were clearly going to be enough because Anaheim’s Reid Detmers was carving through the Seattle lineup. The Mariners had a chance early, with a J.P. single and an Arozarena double. But J.P. was sent home on the double and thrown out by about five feet. It was ugly, made worse by J.P.’s hobbling, but I understood the decision. You’re not going to get a lot of opportunities against Detmers, and it took Jose Siri playing the carom perfectly and a laser on the relay by Neto to nail Crawford by that much. As if to prove the point, Detmers easily struck out the next two batters as he continued his march to 200 strikeouts.
The Mariners’ one good inning was personally dedicated to Angie Mentink: Randy opened the fourth by going up the middle; Dom Canzone went the other way through a gaping hole on the left side in a left-on-left matchup; and Cal Raleigh took a slider cutting in on him and used his titanic strength to scoop it for a three-run oppo taco.
The Angels also paid tribute to one of the Mariners broadcasters that inning by bringing Rick Rizzs a cake in the booth. I am still cackling at the contrast between the penniless A’s donating $4,200 to Rick’s charity this weekend and the Disneyland Angels baking him a small cake tonight.
The M’s scraped together one more run after Detmers had finally left the game with his 8 strikeouts. Facing the southpaw Blake Weiman, J.P. Crawford laid off an inside slider and then watched a sweeper fall out of the zone. You could see his eyes light up. Two pitches later, he got another sweeper, and knew exactly what to do with it, bringing the score to 6-4.
There will be time for full tributes to J.P. Crawford, but as his time with the Mariners may be coming to a close, I want to call out that this has always been one of my favorite things he does. He’s renowned for his eye and his knowledge of the strikezone. But he never gets enough credit for swinging at the right pitches, the ones he sees coming a mile away and knows he can do damage on. That’s why his home runs always come with those swings so smooth that they remind you of Junior (though I confess this particular dinger doesn’t have that Griffey-esque look).
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I’m getting emotional here, so I’m going to spill part of my tribute to him now. Kate’s the one who’s spent a lot of time in the clubhouse, so she may disagree, but to me, the idea of J.P. Crawford as the team captain was never a perfect fit for his role on the team. He was the vibes guy, and at times, he seemed to be a leader on the field. But that rarely came in the form of visually apparent substantive leadership. (The exceptions were his mound visits to Andres Munoz.) And it’s not really how players talked about J.P. It always struck me as more like a narrative that fans imposed upon him. Still, there was something in him that invited us to do that. And I think I know what it was. What J.P. Crawford has been is our captain. It’s what he’s meant to us. And for that, I still think a C on his jersey would’ve been justified for tonight’s Sun Hat Award winner.
But alas, his home run only brought the Mariners to within two, and despite a bout of terminal lucidity in the ninth (a pair of pinch-hit walks from Lazaro Montes and Taylor Ward), the game was over by the time J.P. went yaya. In our predictions poll before the season, the median of the LL readership pegged the Mariners for 93 wins. Tonight, the team lost its 81st game, ensuring that for the first time since 2020, the M’s will not have a winning season. Maybe Anthony Rendon had a point.
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