Orioles 5, Mariners 2: That 2008 trade bites the Mariners again

BALTIMORE — Given their history against former farmhand Chris Tillman, a constant reminder from a disastrous trade, the Mariners needed Taijuan Walker to be at his emerging-ace best Wednesday against Baltimore.

Walker was something less than that and, consequently, the Mariners failed to build on their easy victory in Tuesday’s series opener at Camden Yards. Walker lasted just five innings in a 5-2 loss to the Orioles.

Tillman (6-1) pitched into the seventh inning before departing with one out and a runner at second. He now 7-0 with a 2.96 ERA in nine career starts against the club that drafted him with the 49th overall pick in 2006.

"He just commands his fastball," said Nelson Cruz, who played with Tillman on the 2014 Orioles. "That’s his main pitch. His ball kind of rises, so it’s tough to lay of those pitches."

If you’ve somehow forgotten, Tillman was part of the Feb. 8, 2008 trade that brought him to Baltimore with outfielder Adam Jones, reliever George Sherrill and two other minor-league pitchers for lefty Erik Bedard.

Only I-5 traffic and not giving the ball to Marshawn causes greater teeth-gnashing in the Pacific Northwest.

Brad Brach replaced Tillman and got the final two outs in the seventh before the Mariners, trailing by two runs, stirred in the eighth inning after Robinson Cano’s one-out double.

A walk to Cruz, and Kyle Seager’s single loaded the bases and prompted the Orioles to summon their closer, lefty Zach Britton. That prompted a counter-move to Dae-Ho Lee to bat for Adam Lind.

Lee struck out, and the Mariners left the bases loaded when Chris Iannetta grounded out to second. After Baltimore added an insurance run against Joel Peralta, Britton closed out the victory for his 11th save.

"Their closer is one of the best in the league," manager Scott Servais said. "We had some guys out there tonight. We just couldn’t get them across."

Despite the loss, the Mariners (22-17) remained one game ahead of second-place Texas in the American League West Division.

Cruz’s point about Tillman relying on his fastball is telling because Walker (2-3) admitted his biggest problem was that he didn’t do likewise while often laboring through his five innings.

"I wasn’t throwing (the fastball) a lot," he said. "I just used too much off-speed instead of letting my fastball get a chance to get the velo up."

Walker retired the side in order only once, gave up successive homers in the second to Mark Trumbo and Matt Wieters. And after the Mariners clawed even, Walker gave up single runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

"It wasn’t quite the same crispness to his stuff," Servais said, "that we saw last time out."

The homers by Trumbo and Wieters were no-doubters. First it was Trumbo, a more recent former Mariner, who teed off on an 0-1 curve for a 412-foot bomb to left.

"I threw a hanging curveball," Walker said, "and Trumbo is a power hitter. He doesn’t miss mistakes. That’s what it was, a mistake pitch."

Wieters followed with a 366-foot drive to right on a fastball.

"I was behind in the count," Walker said, "and the ball kind of cut on me right into his barrel. Another mistake pitch."

The Mariners got one run back when Leonys Martin opened the third with a 388-foot drive to right for his sixth homer. Cruz’s leadoff double into the fourth led to the tying run on Iannetta’s sacrifice fly.

But Trumbo and Wieters beat Walker again later in the fourth. Trumbo lined a one-out single up the middle and came all the way around on Wieters’ double off the center-field wall just beyond Martin’s reach.

"I didn’t find the wall with my hand," Martin said. "That’s why I missed the ball."

Much of Walker’s trouble in the fifth inning was self-inflicted. He issued a leadoff walk to Hyun Soo Kim after being ahead 1-2 in the count, and then bungled Joey Rickard’s attempted sacrifice.

Rickard bunted the ball too hard and right back to Walker, who had a chance for a double play — until he threw the ball into center field. Both runners were safe.

"I just rushed it," Walker said. "I didn’t realize I had that much time. I just tried to be too quick with it. I just threw it away."

The runners moved up on Manny Machado’s squibber in front of the plate but had to hold on Adam Jones’ grounder to short with the infield playing in. A walk to Chris Davis loaded the bases for Trumbo.

Walker then fired a wild pitch that sailed high past the plate. Kim and other runners moved to second and third before Trumbo grounded out. So just one run. Baltimore led 4-2. It could have been a lot worse.

It was still enough.

PLAY OF THE GAME: Center fielder Leonys Martin ran down Adam Jones’ deep one-out fly in the first inning. Martin made a leaping catch at the wall in left-center field.

Close second: Baltimore center fielder Adam Jones retreated to catch Robinson Cano’s leadoff drive at the wall in the sixth inning. The difference: Martin had a longer run.

PLUS: Kyle Seager reached base four times with three walks and a single…lefty reliever Mike Montgomery worked two more scoreless innings and lowered his ERA to 2.08…Ketel Marte won an 11-pitch battle against Orioles closer Zach Britton by pulling a leadoff double past third base in the ninth inning.

MINUS: First baseman Adam Lind was hitless in three at-bats. His average is down to .223…reliever Joel Peralta allowed one run in his only inning. That makes five runs in two innings over his last three outings…Nori Aoki was hitless in five at-bats and is 2-for-18 in his last four games.

STAT PACK: The Mariners were 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. They ended five innings with runners in scoring position.

QUOTABLE: Ketel Marte’s double on the 11th pitch in the ninth inning against Orioles closer Zach Britton drew praise from teammate Leonys Martin.

"That’s the best at-bat I’ve ever seen against this guy," Martin said. "You see that sink, right in the middle. That was ridiculous."

SHORT HOPS: Taijuan Walker is 0-3 with a 5.09 ERA in his last four starts…Leonys Martin, in his 37th game, hit his sixth home run, which surpassed his 2015 total of five in 95 games at Texas. His career high is eight in 2013…Robinson Cano has reached base at least once in 17 straight games…Nelson Cruz has reached base at least once in 23 straight games at Camden Yards.

Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/sports/mlb/seattle-mariners/mariners-insider-blog/article78536787.html#storylink=cpy

Mariners right fielder Seth Smith surprises Robinson Cano with catch near infield

BALTIMORE – Seth Smith provided the entertainment in the Mariners’ 10-0 win in the series opener against the Orioles Tuesday night. Not known for his speed or range in the outfield, Smith ranged everywhere, and I mean everywhere, to make the plays, including one in Robinson Cano territory in the sixth inning.

Cano stepped aside after being called off of an Adam Jones popup and gave Smith an amused look as he put on the brakes following the catch on the infield dirt. As he circled to return to right field, Smith had his glove up to his face covering his mouth as he could be seen saying something on the run back with Cano laughing the entire time. I like to think the always quiet and incredibly low key Smith was trash talking Cano. After the game he assured me that wasn’t the case.

“No, I didn’t say anything,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t know what to do. I was, ‘I don’t know what just happened.’ I don’t usually catch that ball, it’s his ball, but it came up, it was going out that way, I was under it and saw it. I don’t know what was going on.”

Mariners manager Scott Servais said after the game it was understandable that Smith, who recorded seven putouts in the game, could lose track of where he was in Camden Yards’ right field as it is a little different.

“The outfield here is a lot smaller than Safeco Field so he’s playing a little bit shallow and he got a little crazy,” he said. “That’s OK, he needs to go after those. We love the effort and he was finishing them off, but when Robbie’s almost standing on the infield and he called him off? That’s a little too much (laughs).”

Mariners' Robinson Cano: Hits first home run since opening weekend

Robinson Cano went 1-for-4 with his fifth home run of the season in Wednesday's extra-inning win over the Rangers.

Cano was the first Seattle Mariners player to even homer in the team's first three games to begin a season. He had four home runs, seven RBI and scored four runs through the team's opening series. Entering Wednesday's game, he hadn't homered, logged an RBI or scored a run since that historic start. Cano likely won't have to wait that long to get his next home run, as he has a date with the short porch at Yankee Stadium this weekend.

Seattle Mariners Season Preview: Robinson Cano

Will Robinson Cano bounce back in 2016?

The rumors that Robinson Cano was unhappy in Seattle did little to help the cause of inspiring confidence in the 2016 Seattle Mariners. What us internet folk will do well to remember is that rumors are in fact, just rumors. The baseball offseason is a dark, dark place and people that were not apart of the Seattle Mariners bustling offseason needed something to do to fill their time.

Speaking of people not involved in the Mariners offseason… One is worth mentioning and then sequentially putting to rest.  This person happens to be a particularly wordy ex-1st base coach named Andy Van Slyke. He in no uncertain terms called Cano the worst second baseman in the league and created an interesting precursor to the “unhappy in Seattle” rumors.

Cano is staying put for a good portion of the foreseeable future. Maybe thank the fact that the opt-out clause trend started in 2015 and not in 2013, or you could thank the fact that Robinson Cano is still a very, very good baseball player.

The Good:

Robbie is still one of the best defensive second basemen in the league. He has had continuously Top-10 finishes throughout his career in multiple defensive categories at second base including overall putouts, assists and double plays turned. What is most inspiring to me, amidst the sports hernia and the hate Cano received for his first-half play, his majestic second half went without much attention. His 1st half was a sad .251/.290/.370, but his second half boasted a .331/.387/.540 with a .926 OPS. Keep it mind that he did still turn around his second half with said injury. Sports hernia be gone and you can already smell the bubble gum popping while he waits in the on deck circle, waiting to hit another one of those gorgeous doubles.

The Bad:

He is entering his age 33 season. There is always a lingering fear of a decline in everyone’s mind. Not everyone ages like fine wine here people and we can probably expect to see a some kind of drop off. Since his 7.8 WAR season with the Yankees in 2012, Cano’s overall contributions have steadily declined. Again, this is a built in expectation as a player ages.

Another idle thought that seems to remain is Cano’s worth as a player. Cano is the second highest payroll earner (next to Felix Hernandez) on the Mariners roster. After the rumors that he was unhappy in Seattle surfaced, it seemed to reinforce the ideal that the Mariners paid him too much when he signed in 2013. This article by Jeff Sullivan from FanGraphs breaks down how the Mariners’ financial commitment to Cano can only be proved with time, but the worry remains that the Mariners will not benefit from this investment.

The Future:

The future of Robinson’s overall production in Seattle shows promising, thanks to FanGraphs and their predicting hearts. They show Robbie putting through a respectable, solid year in 2016. While the overall numbers show him marginally improving over last year, it is important to note that he achieved last year’s numbers because of his inflated numbers in 2nd half. Meaning that he lacked overall consistency throughout the season. This next season should see a consistent Cano contributing to exciting new Mariners lineup.

Despite the many doubts Jack Zduriencik and the remaining parts of his legacy can tend to leave in the hopes and dreams of Mariners fans everywhere, Robinson Cano should not be one of those doubts. His first half of play in 2015 had many running for the left field fences, but should not elicit any type of ill feeling. His overall OBP and wOBA still show positive trends, and should fit well within the Dipoto regime. As I said in the beginning, Robinson Cano is still a very good baseball player. He will continue to have Top-10 finishes in all defensive categories for second baseman.  He probably will never hit 30 home runs in a season again, but he will get on base and be a contributing member of the 2016 Seattle Mariners.

Robinson Cano's decline or lack thereof

The star second baseman has seen his numbers fall the last couple of seasons, but there have been reasons every time. So what does it mean?

Practical application is important. So I'm starting my look at Robinson Cano, 2016 edition, with where I took him in our slow (slooooooow) 15-team mock, currently ongoing on the site

Cano was my pick (woo!) in the fourth round, No. 53 overall. Among second basemen,Jose Altuve and Dee Gordon went earlier, with guys that qualify at the position in at least some leagues like Matt Carpenter, Brian Dozier, Anthony Rendon and Rougned Odor all going by the end of the fifth. More or less, that aligns with our consensus rankings, with Cano coming in third and the aforementioned guys following him in short order.

It's been a steady fall for Cano the last few years. Last year, he was our consensus No. 2 second baseman, and he, Rendon and Altuve formed their own three-player tier. In 2014, he was almost unanimously No. 1, with seven of eight rankers having him first.

It paints a picture of a Cano that has been on a steady decline (his OPS+, games played, doubles and select other stats have all fallen for four years running) that might or might not be fair.

We remember Cano joining Seattle for 2014, and his numbers suffering as a result. Only, as I noted at the start of last year, those suffering numbers were almost entirely power, and at that, almost entirely tied to his first half. Second-half-of-2014 Robinson Cano was exactly what we had traditionally expected for him, leading to some reason for optimism for 2015.

Which made it all the more frustrating when Cano started 2015 like he had won a "Be a big leaguer for a month" contest and had no place there. In the first half of last season, Cano hit .251/.290/.370, had six home runs, basically looked lost. If the season had ended at the All-Star break, these rankings would have Cano as a borderline top-10 second baseman at best, and even that would only have been on reputation.

Of course, Cano had his second half. In that second half, he hit .331/.387/.540. He had 15 home runs. His season-long BABIP of .316 tied his career-low for a year, but considering it was at .290 for that first half, things only went up the rest of the way.

There are reasons for the slump and subsequent improvement, of course. Or, at least, there are theoretical, correlation-without-causation reasons that could explain Cano's struggles. Cano dealt with some serious acid reflux during the first half of the season that supposedly kept him in check. At the end of the season, he had surgery to repair a sports hernia. Almost certainly, one or both of these ailments had an effect on how he played in the games.

In two seasons in Seattle, four half-seasons, Robinson Cano has disappointed twice and blown us away twice. All told, 2015 was the second-worst season of his career, with an OPS+ of 118 breaking up a five-year trend of huge numbers. Even then, his second half was Cano-esque, if not better than that.

Cano is now a 33-year-old second baseman. His numbers have held steady or gotten first for four straight years in several categories. There was a Robinson Cano who finished in the top six of the MVP voting for five straight years, from 2010 to 2014. That guy's gone.

But I got him in the fourth round of a deep mock. I picked him as the third second baseman off the board. I took him with the 53rd pick, and felt like I had won a prize. He's not the superstar he used to be. But he's among the elite second basemen still, and needs to be taken as such.

WATCH: Boston Red Sox' David Ortiz talks Yankees (Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez...)

The New York Daily News published a video (above) Friday of Boston Red Sox' slugger David Ortiz talking about former and current Yankees star players. Ortiz offered his thoughts on the likes of Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Gary Sheffield, Mike Mussina, CC Sabathia, and Alex Rodriguez, among others.

Ortiz, presented with a list of names in a rapid-fire type manner, also said that the Yankees allowing Robinson Cano to leave was one of their biggest mistakes. Cano played his first nine years in New York before signing with the Seattle Mariners before the 2014 season. (And no, he's not coming back.)

When asked about A-Rod, Ortiz, said, "A guy that (has) had an amazing career, but could be better." He didn't elaborate.

Last season it seemed Ortiz was saying that Rodriguez may still be using performance enhancing drugs, but later clarified his words and said that that's not what he was implying.

Ortiz, 40, said last month that next season will be his last in professional baseball. The Sox slugger has won three World Championships with Boston and has tortured the Yankees dating back to 2004.

Ryan Hatch may be reached at rhatch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ryanhatch. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Robinson Cano says he is ‘100%’ happy with Mariners, dispels rumors he wants to return to Yankees

PUNTA CANA, Dominican Republic - Yankee fans can stow away any holiday dreams of a Robinson Cano reunion in the Bronx.

The former Bombers second baseman, who signed a 10-year, $240 million deal to play for Seattle before the 2014 season, told the Daily News he is "100%" happy in the Emerald City, despite recent reports to the contrary.

"I don't want to comment on that because I don't want to make a big deal about it. Whoever says that, I don't know why they say that," Cano told The News Saturday night, prior to a dinner at Red Sox slugger David Ortiz's charity golf tournament event. Cano, 33, added that he "can't wait" for the 2016 season to begin, borrowing a phrase from former Jets linebacker Bart Scott.

On Friday, Ortiz was asked to comment on former and current Yankees prior to his swan song season with the Red Sox, and when Big Papi got to Cano's name, he called out the Yankees for not keeping the second baseman in pinstripes when Cano was a free agent.

"The biggest mistake that the Yankees ever have done, letting him go," said Ortiz.

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"Coming from (Ortiz), it means a lot," Cano said. "He's a big brother, one of the guys I would look up to. He's hit like 500 home runs (503), over 2,000 hits - that's every player's dream come true. He has done everything in baseball. He's the kind of guy that always wants to retire when he's doing good. Not wait until they retire him."

Cano batted .287 with 21 homers and 79 RBI this past season, his second with the Mariners, but he dealt with a parasite issue, and had surgery to repair a sports hernia in October.

"My stomach is a little better. Not 100%, but I'm better," said Cano.

The San Pedro de Macoris, D.R. native opened his RC22 Dream School in the Dominican city last week and said it is "one of the biggest things I've ever done in my life."

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Between training for the 2016 season, Cano said he will be actively involved in the day-to-day process at his new charitable endeavor. "We already started class (last) Monday. So it's underway now. I'm not gonna be teaching. But I might come, pass by and just talk to (students), read some books and spend time with them. It's close to where I practice. Makes it easier for me," said Cano.