LOS ANGELES — They have the money. They have the rings. They have the most bankable phenomenon in the sport, and they have a roster littered with stars and future Hall of Famers.
The Dodgers also have Eric Lauer.
It’s almost not fair.
A day after a wildly encouraging breakthrough against baseball’s modern dynasty, the Mariners reverted back to the sluggish ways that have largely defined their season, managing only one hit against Lauer in a 4-2 defeat at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night.
Lauer, a soft-tossing journeyman left-hander, allowed only a seeing-eyed single to Cole Young in his six shutout innings. The Mariners got only one runner into scoring position, and never past second base.
The Mariners (53-56) never threatened, and the Dodgers (68-40) never appeared bothered.
Emerson Hancock pitched five gritty innings but was hit with the loss in perhaps his final start for the Mariners ahead of Monday’s MLB trade deadline.
“Different kind of a ballgame tonight,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said.
Once again, Wilson wasn’t interested postgame in delving into the particulars of his lineup’s struggles. He’s always going to default to an optimistic, let’s-get-’em-tomorrow tone, and that didn’t change.
“Just kind of a different night tonight,” he repeated. “Yesterday, found a lot of barrels. Today, a lot of contact, just not a lot of barrels.”
It’s another disappointing about-face for the Mariners, who played their most inspiring brand of baseball 24 hours earlier in the series opener during a dramatic 7-6 victory.
Baseball’s worst offense against left-handed pitching, the M’s finally broke through against the Dodgers’ left-handers Tuesday night, belting a season-high five home runs.
The Mariners’ hope was that would unlock something they could carry over into the coming days in weeks.
Instead, the lineup was back to its head-scratching form.
What, Wilson was asked, will it take to find some consistent traction offensively?
“I mean, again, there was contact,” he said. “And we weren’t punching out (five strikeouts and two walks), but just not the solid contact, the barrels that we had last night. And a chance to win the series tomorrow, and to do that we’re going to have to find that consistent hard contact, and that will make the difference.”
On his 23rd birthday, Young hit a two-out single in the eighth inning off Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott to drive in Weston Wilson and save the Mariners from their 10th shutout of the season.
Teoscar Hernandez, the ex-Mariner, made a leaping catch at the wall in left field earlier in the inning to rob Mitch Garver.
Another ex-Mariner, Edwin Díaz, closed it out for the Dodgers in the ninth inning in his first game back from the injured list, though he did surrender doubles to Dom Canzone and Josh Naylor to cut the Mariners’ deficit to 4-2.
Pinch-hitter Luke Raley lined out to Freddie Freeman at first base to end it.
Hancock, the Mariners’ biggest breakout story of the season, worked through five solid innings against the two-time reigning World Series champs, whose $400 million payroll is one of the major reasons a lockout is looming over the sport this winter.
It was Hancock’s first time pitching at Dodger Stadium, and in front of an energetic crowd of 46,065.
“You know going in the caliber of a team they are, the lineup that they have; you have to execute,” Hancock said. “You know the environment is going to be really, really good (and) really, really fun to play in, in a way. So it’s more just about trusting your stuff and slowing the game down in moments.”
Hancock opened the game with a strikeout of Shohei Ohtani, the sport’s biggest star. But he hung a two-strike sweeper to Andy Pages, who sent it out to left field for a home run to give the Dodgers an early 1-0 lead.
Hancock allowed three earned runs in five innings, though two of those runs came on unusual infield singles on plays Wilson couldn’t make at third base.
The first was a shattered-bat single from Freddie Freeman — with a mere 46.7-mph exit velocity — to drive in a run in the second inning.
In the fourth, after an intentional walk to Ohtani to load the bases with two outs, Pages sent a one-hopper to Wilson’s left, and the ball deflected off his glove to bring in another run and make it 3-0.
Hancock’s name has surfaced in trade rumors in recent days, and industry sources have said the Mariners are open to trading either Hancock or Luis Castillo to upgrade other areas of the roster.
Hancock has tried to block all that out and live in the moment, but he’s certainly aware of it.
“It’s hard,” he said. “It’s just a balance. I think you’ve got to have awareness of, like, where you’re at, and also just the perspective of, this is what you dream of as a kid. You don’t want anything to get in the way of that. You don’t want to have (those) thoughts coming to the field.”
He intimated that his preference would be to remain with the Mariners, the team that drafted him in the first round in 2020.
“I love our team. I love our guys. I love what I get to do,” he said. “And again, just the more that I’ve learned, if you can just block that stuff out, do the best you can for the guys around you, that’s what helps.”
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