Mariners vs. Rangers: A tale of three pitchers

3) Gonzales struggles again:

Fans could be forgiven for wondering what to expect from Marco Gonzales heading into Thursday night. His first start of the season saw him only last two innings, while his second resulted in a superior effort against a Houston Astros side which usually gets the better of him.

Things looked good early on, as the Mariners shot out to an early 5-0 lead in the first inning. The Rangers got two back in the top of the second, but the home side was still in a strong position.

Gonzales seemed to be firing on all cylinders, with six strikeouts in the first three innings. The situation looked good entering the fifth, but then the unexpected happened.

More specifically, J.P. Crawford committed a couple of errors to help two men reach base. To put this into context, he had only ever once before recorded two errors in one game, and never in the same inning.

As a result of Crawford’s mistakes, what should have been a 1-2-3 inning instead impacted Gonzales’ confidence. He subsequently allowed an RBI double, a two-run homer and another double in successive at-bats, resulting in four runs and the end of his evening.

While Gonzales allowed six hits in 4.2 innings, only two of the six runs were earned. In fact, a sign of his bad luck overall is that he now has a Major League-leading eight unearned runs this season.

Overall, whether you want to call it bad luck, poor form, or a combination of the two, there is no need to panic about the 30-year-old at this stage. He similarly struggled early last season before bouncing back with an impressive second half of the year; for the team in general, it also helps that the rotation is stronger in 2022.

Crawford made a point of saying the loss was on him, in a game which was there for the taking. Ultimately though, it’s a team game, with plenty of blame to go around.

In terms of the fielding errors specifically though, Gonzales was not about to pass the buck or shirk responsibilty. He said:

“I look at that as an opportunity to pick our guys up. Certainly, these guys pick me up all year long; it’s a long season to be played. There’s going to be a lot of that back and forth, but I think in those times I take pride in being able to move forward and get us back in the dugout. I wasn’t able to do that, so I put that on myself to be able to continue to make pitches and unfortunately I couldn’t make that happen.”

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