SEATTLE — There were runners on base in six of the nine innings.
But the Detroit Tigers couldn’t cash in.
After winning the first two games, the Tigers were taken down, 2-0, by the Seattle Mariners in Sunday’s series finale at T-Mobile Park. The pitching staff, including right-hander Reese Olson, kept a comeback within reach until the final out.
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The Tigers (41-51) put runners on base in each of the first five innings, starting with Riley Greene’s one-out single in the first inning. Spencer Torkelson struck out looking for the second out, then Greene was thrown out advancing to second base on a sweeper in the dirt by Mariners right-hander Bryce Miller.
Stranding runners was the theme of Sunday’s finale.
The Tigers failed to drive in Kerry Carpenter (leadoff single) in the second inning, Zach McKinstry (two-out double) in the third, Torkelson (leadoff single) and Matt Vierling (one-out walk) in the fourth and Jake Rogers ( leadoff single) in the fifth.
Miller tossed five scoreless innings, allowing five hits, with one walk and three strikeouts. His replacement, right-handed reliever Matt Brash, retired three batters in a row with strikeouts of Torkelson and Carpenter in the sixth inning.
Right-handed relievers Justin Topa and Andrés Muñoz retired six straight batters in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively.
In the ninth inning, right-hander Paul Sewald struck out Torkelson, who went 1-for-4 with three strikeouts, to win an eight-pitch battle. Carpenter delivered his second hit of the game — a bloop single that dropped on the left-field line — but Vierling (strikeout) and Javier Báez (strikeout) failed to move him up on the bases.
Báez, hitting .220 in 88 games, finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts.
With the loss, the Tigers dropped to 5½ games behind the Minnesota Twins for first place in the American League Central.
Reese’s piece
Olson looked sharp in the ninth appearance of his big-league career, allowing two runs on six hits with five strikeouts in 5⅓ innings. The 23-year-old struck out Teoscar Hernández, a right-handed hitter, on a down-and-away slider for the first out in the sixth inning before giving way to left-handed reliever Chasen Shreve.
Olson threw 54 of 75 pitches for strikes and did not concede a walk.
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The Mariners, though, applied pressure from the beginning of the game with back-to-back hits from JP Crawford (double) and Julio Rodríguez (infield single). A second-pitch sinker from Olson induced a double play against Hernández.
Olson nearly escaped the jam, but Jarred Kelenic smacked a first-pitch slider for a double to score Crawford from third. The extra-base hit put the Mariners ahead, 1-0, in the first inning.
The Mariners didn’t score again until Cal Raleigh’s solo home run with two outs in the fourth inning, making it 2-0. He worked the count to 3-1, then hammered Olson’s four-seam fastball for a 432-foot homer to right-center.
Other than those runs, Olson kept the Mariners in check without run support.
The Tigers’ rookie threw 31 sliders (41%), 25 four-seam fastballs (33%), 13 sinkers (17%), five changeups (7%) and one curveball (1%). He generated 15 whiffs with nine sliders, five four-seamers and one changeup.
His four-seam fastball, despite having a 10.8% whiff rate in his previous eight games, had an impressive 36% whiff rate against the Mariners.
Oh, that bullpen
After Olson’s 5⅓ innings, left-handed reliever Chasen Shreve — a likely trade candidate for the Tigers at the Aug. 1 deadline — worked around a two-out walk and finished the sixth inning.
Right-hander Mason Englert, the Tigers’ Rule 5 draft pick, pitched the seventh and eighth innings without allowing a run.
Contact Evan Petzold at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @EvanPetzold.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers waste solid start from Reese Olson in 2-0 loss to M’s