ARLINGTON — Right fielder Rob Refsnyder‘s acrobatic catch stole the show in the Mariners’ 3-0 loss to the Rangers on Wednesday — as did starting pitcher Bryan Woo’s incredulous reaction.
After Refsnyder robbed Josh Smith of a third-inning homer, Woo blurted out two words on the mound — the first of which appeared to be “holy” — and tipped his cap to his teammate. Smith joked after the game that he “wanted to cry” when he was denied what would have been his first homer this season.
In what was then a scoreless tie, Smith led off with a deep fly ball down the right-field line that Refsnyder tracked down and grabbed with a leaping catch at the wall. Refsnyder slowed from a full sprint, timed his jump just right and robbed Smith of a homer. Refsnyder, who wasn’t positioned near that corner, had to cover 115 feet of ground to run down the ball.
“Unbelievable — definitely one of the best catches I’ve ever seen, the distance he covered, and being able to track that down all the way over, and then also, it’s such a high fence and a weird corner,” Woo said.
But the Rangers’ three-run frame two innings later loomed larger as the Mariners’ offensive woes continued, extending their losing streak to five games after a three-game sweep at Globe Life Field.
“This is a tough one — offensively, again, just not much going on offensively,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “We were able to get a little bit of traffic, but we were not able to move it along. Not enough consistency on the offensive side.”
The Mariners departed Texas ranked last in the AL in team batting average (.184), on-base percentage (.280) and slugging percentage (.301). When Wednesday’s loss ended, they were the only MLB team hitting below .200 and the only MLB team with an OPS below .600.
“You’re going to go through lulls like this,” said third baseman Brendan Donovan, who is one of the few Mariners regulars producing at the plate right now with a 1.027 OPS. “Unfortunately, we’re just getting hit with some adversity at the beginning. … Personally, I’d rather us go through it now, see what we’re made of, establish our identity, and then go from there.
“We’ve just got to string some hits, some days, some games together, and then we’ll look back at this and laugh.”
After eking out only two hits and striking out 13 times Wednesday, no one was laughing in the visitors’ clubhouse. Among many somber faces was Woo, who pitched five decent innings in the loss and allowed only one earned run.
“We’ve got to find a way out of it,” Woo said of the Mariners’ skid. “Luckily it’s April and not September, but we still need to have some urgency about it. … If there’s anything we’ve learned over the last couple years, it’s just, you’ve just got to get hot at the right time and find a way into the playoffs. But you can’t get there unless you win the games that you need to win. And so, it’s not the end of the world, but we still need to find a way to pick it up.”
Woo struck out two, walked two and gave up three runs (two unearned). Meanwhile, the Mariners went down quietly against Rangers starter MacKenzie Gore and relievers Chris Martin, Luis Curvelo and Cole Winn, who combined for the two-hit shutout.
“We’ve got some work to do, there’s no doubt about it,” Wilson said.
