SEATTLE — The Yankees now know what the Giants must have felt like throughout the first series of the season.
After their pitching staff shut down the Giants for three straight games to start the year — and largely did the same with the Mariners on Monday — the Yankees got a taste of their own medicine.
On a chilly night at T-Mobile Park, their bats were held in check and their bullpen finally cracked in the bottom of the ninth, when Cal Raleigh delivered a walk-off single against Paul Blackburn to lift the Mariners to a 2-1 win and hand the Yankees their first loss.
After Ryan Weathers gave up one run across 4 ¹/₃ innings in his Yankees debut, the bullpen turned in 3 ²/₃ scoreless innings — making it 14 ²/₃ to start the season — before the Mariners got to Blackburn in his second inning of work. Aaron Boone had already used Fernando Cruz, Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and Camilo Doval, and had David Bednar for an inning if the Yankees had gotten the lead, so Blackburn went back out for the ninth in the 1-1 game.
Leo Rivas led off with a single past the dive of Ben Rice and one out later, Brendan Donovan singled on a bouncing ball up the middle to put runners on the corners.
Raleigh, who began the night on the bench after starting the year 2-for-15 with 10 strikeouts, then came through in the clutch, hooking a single down the right-field line to end it.
“If we’re going to win that game, it just felt like our best way to go was with Black[burn],” Boone said. “I thought he managed contact for the most part there, even in that final inning. … They found a couple holes and beat us.”
The Yankees had another aggressive night with the automated ball-strike system, going 5-for-5 on challenges, matching the amount of hits they tallied against a dominant Luis Castillo and the Mariners bullpen.
The only two hits Castillo gave up across six innings came on a bloop and a dribbler, with the Yankees racking up 17 swings-and-misses against him.
“We were having a hard time with his fastball, it was playing up tonight,” Boone said. “That low slot, he’s able to generate some swings and misses at the top. With his fastball, he was getting us to swing through some pitches.”
Weathers, who struck out seven, was solid in his Yankees debut, retiring seven straight into the fifth inning, when the first two batters reached on singles and then moved to second and third on a groundout.
Fernando Cruz then replaced Weathers and bailed him out, getting pinch-hitter Dominic Canzone and Julio Rodriguez to whiff badly at splitters, keeping it a 1-0 game.
“I definitely want to be more efficient, want to be in the zone a little bit more,” said Weathers, who said he was battling some nerves in the first inning before settling in. “I don’t want to hang my hat on 4 ¹/₃ innings. I want to get deeper in the ballgame, and a lot of that comes from managing pitch count myself and not falling behind in counts.”
The Yankees took advantage of Castillo leaving the game and quickly tied it up in the top of the seventh. Ben Rice led off the frame by roping a single against lefty José A. Ferrer before Giancarlo Stanton reached on an error.
One out later, with runners on the corners, Amed Rosario pinch-hit for Ryan McMahon — to which the Mariners responded by bringing in righty Eduard Bazardo. But Rosario got the job done anyway, lifting a sacrifice fly to center to tie the game 1-1.
The Mariners threatened to take the lead in the bottom of the seventh, putting runners on the corners with one out, but Headrick struck out Raleigh before Doval got Rodriguez to ground out — though that was it for Doval after two pitches because Boone did not want to use him for a second up this early in the season.
“I thought our whole team threw the ball well all night,” Weathers said. “Seattle threw the ball well. It was definitely a pitchers’ duel.”
