On Friday, the Seattle Mariners had their first game on the road and also suffered their first loss at Camelback Ranch at the hands the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-4. The Mariners went with mostly bench players in their starting lineup, and they faired fairly well against Dodgers starter David Huff, who went two scoreless innings, giving up one hit and striking out two.
On the hill for the Mariners was Erasmo Ramirez. He is battling potentially for a bullpen spot and has an outside chance at the fifth rotation spot. Ramirez got into a bit of trouble on his own as he gave up four hits and two unearned runs in two innings. Ramirez's unearned runs were scored off of an overthrow that he committed himself.
At the plate, Seattle was led by shortstop Chris Taylor, who had a triple over the head of center fielder Chris Heisey. Later, he sat on a breaking ball that he drove into the bullpen in left field for a two-run home run. He finished 2 for 2 on the day with 3 RBIs. This is good news for Taylor as he is locked in a fierce battle for the starting shortstop role with Brad Miller.
The home run by Taylor gave the Mariners a 4-2 lead, but they didn't hold that lead for much longer. The Dodgers cut the lead to 4-3 in the fifth after a wild pitch by Forrest Snow. Then in the sixth, the Dodgers got to Michael Kickham, who gave up three unearned runs and three hits in 2/3 of an inning. The highly-touted young shortstop Ketel Marte committed two errors on two straight plays, which kept the inning alive for Los Angeles, and they made the Mariners pay for that as they tacked on three more runs to take a 6-4 lead.
Outside of the errors, the Mariners did not play all that badly. Three errors turned into five unearned runs and ended up dooming Seattle on this day. There were some promising performances by some players today for Seattle. Willie Bloomquist, who is coming off of knee surgery in September, checked in with a 2-for-2 day in his first start in the field since his injury. In addition, Justin Ruggiano checked in with a base hit in his first appearance as a Mariner this spring. D.J. Peterson extended his hit streak to three games with another single down the left field line in the ninth inning.
As for the Dodgers, they had some bittersweet performances out of their bullpen today. Lefty reliever J.P. Howell gave up the two-run home run to Taylor in the fifth as he was one of two pitchers to give up runs today; the other was Dustin McGowan in the third. In the eighth inning, the Dodgers got a good inning out of lefty Paco Rodriguez, who is looking to get back to his rookie ways after a tough second season in Los Angeles.
On offense, the Dodgers got hits from Jimmy Rollins, Adrian Gonzalez, Yasmani Grandal, Howie Kendrick, and Andre Ethier as part of their nine total hits.
The Mariners have split-squad games tomorrow. One squad will host the Diamondbacks in Peoria with Hisashi Iwakuma on the hill. The other will travel to Camelback Ranch again but will face the Chicago White Sox instead with Jordan Pries toeing the slab for Seattle. The Dodgers will travel to Goodyear to face reigning Cy Young winner Corey Kluber and the Cleveland Indians.