Luis Castillo back to his old self as Mariners drub Oakland

The randomness of regular-season results, including the unexpected outcomes of games, is a somewhat accepted and romantic charm of the marathon that is a 162-game baseball season.

The sheer number of games, and the possibility of a starting pitcher influencing the final score in either way, allows for some understanding when the worst team in baseball beats the best team in baseball.

And yet, when the Mariners jogged on to the manicured surface of T-Mobile Park in Monday night’s opener of a 10-game homestand, the possibility of losing that game against the Oakland Athletics should’ve been between not happening and never.

To be clear, the Mariners, based on how they had played for much of the previous 46 games, are not one of the best teams in baseball. They’ve been one of the most perplexing, frustrating and largely disappointing teams in the first two months of the season.

The A’s, well, they are without peer in being the worst team in baseball. They might be one of the worst teams in the last 40 years. For what they lack in experience, the A’s fail to make up for it due an equal lack of talent. Like the plot of the movie “Major League,” they are bad enough to relocate the franchise to a different city.  

But coming off a disappointing trip on which their offensive production was intermittent at best and absent when needed, and with Luis Castillo looking to re-establish his dominance after substandard showings in his previous outings, defeat was not an option for the Mariners.  

From the first pitch of an 11-2 “get-right” victory, the Mariners played like the significantly superior team in all facets of the game. Yes, they should beat Oakland. But they did it decisively. It’s something Seattle didn’t do during a three-game series at a largely empty Oakland Coliseum in the first week of May. The Mariners needed to come from behind in each of their wins in a three-game sweep in Oakland.  

But this game wasn’t close or competitive.

“We played a complete game, which is just great to see,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said.

Castillo came out firing pinpoint fastballs that reached 99 mph, peppering the top of the strike zone and overwhelming A’s hitters and looking more like the playoff version of himself. He tossed six shutout innings, allowing four hits with two walks and eight strikeouts.

“The last couple of times out, it’s been a bit of a struggle for him,” Servais said. “Tonight, he was super aggressive and all of his pitches were working and locating much better and ahead in the count all night long. I was hoping to maybe get seven innings out of him, but I will take six zeros up there any time.”

Frustrated by his outing in Boston, Castillo worked with pitching coach Pete Woodworth during his Atlanta to get his four-seam fastball back at the top of the strike zone and his sinker and changeup more consistently at the bottom.

“He had been mid-thigh with too many of his pitches the last couple times out and that’s what gets him in trouble,” Servais said. “He’s really, really good, but I don’t care how good you are or how good your stuff is, if you live in that middle area of the strike zone, you’re gonna get hit. He’s got to stay out of there and he did it tonight.”

But it was his fifth strikeout of the game that will be the most memorable for Castillo. Facing slugging catcher Shea Langeliers, who had doubled to left in his first at-bat, he fired a 96-mph fastball at the top of the strike zone for a swinging first strike. After a changeup low and out of the zone was called a ball, Castillo blew two fastballs at 97 mph and 98 mph past the swinging Langeliers at the top of the strike zone for his 1,000^th career strikeout. It earned a standing ovation from the announced crowd of 15,418.

“It’s a lot of strikeouts for six years in the big leagues,” Castillo said through interpreter Freddy Llanos. “Hopefully, God gives me the health to get 1,000 more. It wasn’t a big reaction from me. But I saw the fans give me the ovation. And I just want to thank them for standing up and cheering for me when that happened. It was a special moment.”

Meanwhile, the much-maligned Mariners offense delivered one of its better overall showings in recent weeks, grinding through at-bats and forcing A’s starter Kyle Muller and the relievers that followed to pitch behind in counts with runners on base.

Seattle banged out 13 hits, worked five walks and struck out eight times in the game. Eight of their nine hitters reached base with seven tallying hits.

“The tone was set early in the day when we got to the ballpark,” Servais said. “In pregame meetings today, our position players were not happy. They know that our pitching has been doing an outstanding job, giving us a chance to win every night and we’re not taking advantage of it. Talking to a few of the guys and sitting in the meetings today, there was definitely a different vibe about it.”

The Mariners have had big offensive games before and didn’t back them up.

“It was great to see tonight, but it’s just a start,” Servais said. “You gotta go out tomorrow night and do it again. Then the next night and do it again.”

Jarred Kelenic gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead in the first inning in a textbook at-bat. After refusing to swing at sliders out of the strike zone on the first two pitches to get ahead 2-0, Kelenic sat on a 94-mph fastball from Muller, sending a baseball-sized comet into the stands in deep right-center. The blast had 112-mph exit velocity and measured 455 feet.

It was Kelenic’s 10^th homer of the season. The last Mariners player age 23 or younger to reach double figures in home runs that fast in a season was Alex Rodriguez, who did it in 31 games in 1999.  

The Mariners were relentless against Muller. An inning later, Cal Raleigh led off with a single and AJ Pollock worked a one-out walk to bring the surprising phenomenon that is Jose Caballero to the plate.

After hitting his first MLB homer in his last at-bat on Sunday, Caballero followed that up with his second MLB homer in his first at-bat Monday. The hot-hitting infielder smashed a 2-1 a slider into the Mariners bullpen.

After Muller was able to work two innings scoreless, Seattle picked up another run in the fifth when Julio Rodriguez led off with a hustle double on a blooper to right field and Kelenic smacked a single up the middle to make it 6-0.

Seattle added two more in the sixth as Rodriguez, who had three hits on the night, roped a run-scoring double to left and Eugenio Suarez added an RBI single.

After Oakland picked up two runs in the eighth against Seattle’s bullpen, the Mariners responded with three more in the bottom half of the inning.