Mariners Split First Two against Rockies, Reach Edge of Elimination

When the M’s looked at their schedule in the early months of 2026, the antepenultimate series of the season - a three-game set against the Colorado Rockies - surely did not stand out as particularly important.

The 2025 Rockies, who were the second-to-last regular season series for the M’s, had been mere speed bumps for Cal Raleigh to reach the six decade mark and for the team to clinch its spot as AL West champs. The fact that their opponents were then the Rockies meant nothing, because the story of that team at that point was what they could do, rather than what could be done to them.

And as it turned out, it is not. Despite the fact that the two teams will be separated by somewhere on the order of 15 to 20 wins at the end of the year, neither one will be going anywhere in October. The Rockies, as expected, have been one of the worst teams in the sport, long competing for the NL West cellar with the near-equally hapless Giants until the bottom fell out in September with a 1-11 run going into their series with Seattle.

Over the first two games of their series, the teams have split a game apiece, looking very much evenly matched as they battled - perhaps flailed is a better term - against each other in picturesque Coors Field. Seattle won 5-4 on Friday while Colorado prevailed 5-3 on Saturday, nearly even tallies for teams that, by this point of the year, were nearly even in ability.

Perhaps the Mariners could have won both had their defense been merely average; perhaps the Rockies could have won both had their pitching been merely average. Both teams ensured that their performance in this series wouldn’t meaningfully impact their chances long before they actually faced off; the only difference is that the Mariners didn’t expect it to happen to them.