Seattle, for what it's worth, wasn't exactly whole either. Emerson Hancock and Nick Davila both landed on the injured list within the week, and the bullpen has been picking up innings without Matt Brash and Cole Wilcox. But the Mariners had one thing no injury report could measure: a spark. Lazaro Montes made his major league debut a day earlier with a home run and 2 RBI, becoming the first Mariner with multiple hits in a debut since Ichiro Suzuki, and that kind of jolt travels.
That jolt carried straight into the finale. Seattle broke through with 4 runs in the 3rd and answered right back with 4 more in the 6th, the kind of two-inning explosion that buries a start no matter how well the rest of it goes. Boston chipped away with a run in the 4th and 2 in the 7th, but it was too little, spread over too many innings, against a lineup that had already cashed in twice.
The finale finishes what had been an even set — Boston took the opener, Seattle answered the next night behind Montes, and Wednesday's game decided it. For a Red Sox club that's been one of baseball's best stories since Chad Tracy took over the dugout in the spring, dropping a series like that to a team well under .500 in September isn't the look the interim skipper wants heading into the stretch run.
None of it changes the bigger picture for either club. Boston is still playing meaningful September baseball under Tracy, who's turned a disastrous start into one of the American League's best second-half records and a real Manager of the Year case. Seattle, sitting well under .500, was mostly playing spoiler — and playing loose, with a rookie fresh off signing his name into the record books next to Ichiro's.
Both clubs move on with September clocks running, one hunting a playoff spot and the other auditioning arms and bats for next year. Wednesday's finale is a data point either way — for the Red Sox it's a red flag on a shorthanded lineup, for the Mariners a reminder that Montes might be worth watching the rest of the way.