The Seattle Mariners suffered a difficult 6-5, 10-inning loss to the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night at loanDepot Park.

The Mariners actually trailed 4-0 in this game, but rallied to take a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning before ultimately losing in walkoff fashion.

Gabe Speier, who has been excellent this season, surrendered a game-tying home run in the bottom of the eighth inning and the Marlins won it after the Mariners failed to score in the top half of the 10th.

As usual, M's manager Dan Wilson is getting grief from fans for his handling of the bullpen, and the offense is getting its share of blame as well after going 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position. 

But regardless of either of those facts, two problems, that were recently hidden by the M's 5-1 homestand, came back into play.

Because the Mariners have six starting pitchers, they only have seven bullpen arms. That means that they are generally unprepared for starts in which their starter delivers a short outing, and they are also unprepared for extra innings in a lot of cases.

Bryan Woo went only five innings in this game as Jose Ferrer, Eduard Bazardo, Speier and Andres Munoz each worked one.

As a result, by the 10th inning, the Mariners were left with Michael Rucker, Nick Davila and Cole Wilcox only. That's not to say they can't do the job, but that's not the crew the M's would prefer have in leverage extra-inning situations.

Not only are the Mariners a physical man short in the bullpen, they are also short on leverage options. The four guys who threw in innings 6-9 are the four guys who the M's have that are capable of getting high-octane outs consistently.

The Mariners would have loved the ability to have Matt Brash or Carlos Vargas somewhere in this game, but they are both out until at least August.

If and when they return, they will be welcome additions to the roster, but the M's could also stand to acquire another solid reliever at the trade deadline. Perhaps that addition will come internally from bringing up top prospect Kade Anderson, and perhaps it will come from moving a starter to the bullpen, but it needs to come from somewhere.

A) The Mariners need to go better than 2-for-13 with RISP. They could have won that game outright in regulation.

B) The Mariners are not built to have their starter only go five innings in a close game. That puts too much stress on the bullpen, especially the leverage guys. Part of the reason why the Mariners were able to go 5-1 on the most recent homestand? The starters all went six innings or more, alleviating some of the bullpen woes.

The latest edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast is now out, and it features former Mariners' 3B Ben Williamson. You can listen here, or you can watch the YouTube player below.

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