Erratic Andres Muñoz walks in winning run in 9th as Mariners fall to Brewers

MILWAUKEE – The venue changed, but the problems and the failures remain.

While temperatures outside felt more like late fall than early spring, the toasty climate-controlled confines of American Family Field made for a pleasant evening for baseball. Well, not for the Mariners or their fans.

With hopes that the first road trip of the season, which would be played completely indoors, might somehow change their fortunes, the Mariners were reminded that strikeouts, defensive miscues and failed execution in key situations don’t win games.

And they were all apparent in Friday’s 6-5 loss to the Brewers.

But the Mariners’ fifth defeat in their first eight games did offer a glimpses of what they could be as a team while providing those familiar reminders of what they’ve been thus far.

The disappointment came in a different way. After scoring two runs in the top of the ninth inning to tie the game at 5, manager Scott Servais turned to closer Andres Muñoz to push it into extra innings.

Instead, the hard-throwing reliever suffered through one of his worst outings in his career, walking the first three batters he faced and eventually walking home the winning run.

“Disappointed with the way it ended,” Servais said. “They earned it because they took the close pitches and we didn’t get any calls. Very uncharacteristic of Muñoz. He usually goes in there and fills up the strike zone. He just wasn’t able to do it. It’s a tough way to end it. When a guy hits a big hit on a walk-off, sometimes that’s a little bit easier. But when you kind of give it to him, so to speak, that’s tough one to swallow.”

Facing the bottom of the Brewers order, Muñoz walked Sal Frelick on five pitches after falling behind 3-0, pinch-hitter Jake Bauers on six pitches and Brice Turang, who was trying to sac bunt, on five pitches. He came back to strike out rookie Jackson Chourio looking. But after swinging and missing at a 1-0 slider, William Contreras simply waited out Muñoz and got the free pass to first.

Servais and catcher Cal Raleigh had plenty of words for home-plate umpire Derek Thomas during the inning and after the game. But the arguing wasn’t going to change the outcome and the Brewers’ muted victory celebration. Muñoz fired 26 pitches and only nine were strikes – one swinging, five called and three foul balls.

“We’d never seen that before,” Servais said. “There were a lot of close pitches and they just didn’t swing. I haven’t looked at the whole inning, seeing the replay on all of them, some of them were right on the edge and some of them weren’t.”

As the search for positives to a disappointing, but hardly season-killing start, the Mariners did rally twice from deficits to tie the game only to see the Brewers answer with runs to retake the lead.

“It was kind of the theme of the game,” Raleigh said. “We clawed back into the game and got some life … and then they took advantage of some mistakes and that’s what good teams do.”

Down 5-3 going into the ninth and facing Brewers interim closer Abner Uribe, Seattle rallied behind the bottom of the batting order. Back-to-back singles from Dylan Moore and Samad Taylor, who both entered the game in the sixth inning as pinch hitters, started the rally. Luis Urias, also an in-game substitution, doubled over the wall in right-center to score a run. Had the ball not hopped over the wall and bounced against it, the speedy Taylor would’ve scored easily on the play. Instead, he later scored on Julio Rodriguez’s hard ground ball to shortstop that tied the game.

“I thought we did some really good things offensively,” Servais said. “Our offense came to life. Something we did not seen a lot of here recently. After getting off to a rough start in the game, getting back into the game the way we did and seeing our offensive go was definitely a positive.”

For the first five innings, the Mariners hitters struggled against Brewers starter Freddy Peralta. He held Seattle scoreless, allowing one hit and striking out seven batters.

“He’s kind of like a Brian Woo,” Raleigh said. “He’s got that low crossfire arm slot and the ball gets on you. He throws a really heavy fastball. It seems like the fastball really jumps on you and he has an extra gear to his heater.”

Peralta, now 27, was once a raw pitching prospect in the Mariners farm system. He was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2013, pitching one seasons in the Dominican Summer league and two in the Arizona Complex League.

Before the 2016 season as then newly hired general manager Jerry Dipoto tried to rework his roster to compete without increasing his payroll due to budget limits set by ownership (yes, it was happening back then), he sent Peralta and fellow right-handed pitchers Carlos Herrera and Daniel Missaki to the Brewers in exchange for first baseman Adam Lind.

Lind played one forgettable season with the Mariners before becoming a free agent while Peralta would work his way through the Brewers system, making his debut in 2018 and making the All-Star Game in 2021.

As Peralta cruised early, his teammates provided him a 3-0 lead off Seattle starter Logan Gilbert.

Gilbert gave up his first of three solo homers allowed in the second inning when Willy Adames launched a fly ball over the right field wall. Milwaukee added another run later in the inning on Joey Ortiz’s double to right-center. In the fourth inning, rookie Oliver Dunn hit his first MLB homer off Gilbert.

Down 3-0, the Mariners hitters finally got going in their third time facing Peralta in the game. J.P. Crawford led off with a single and Julio Rodriguez was hit by a pitch. With one out, Mitch Haniger singled through the left side to score Crawford. Rodriguez later scored on Mitch Garver’s sac fly to center. Raleigh tied the game with a 110-mph rocket over the head of Chourio in right field to tie the game.

But Gilbert couldn’t keep the game tied. After striking out Christian Yelich twice, he left a slider up that was hammered into the upper deck in right field.

“The pitch before was a swing and miss and I got it down, the next one I left up and he hit it out,” Gilbert said.

The Brewers added another run off Ryne Stanek with two outs in the eighth inning. Dunn hit a rocket one hopper that bounced high and hit off Crawford’s glove and bounced into center to score a run and make it 5-3.