Mariners Playoff Hopes All But Finished After Dropping First Two to A’s
Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Friday saw the Mariners place one more stone on their own immurement, falling to 66-76 and seven games back of the division. In truth, they had long sealed themselves off from any reasonable chance of wriggling themselves out of their predicament, but they had still been in the twilight of the possible as they returned home from a series win against the Red Sox and began their first of four games against the Athletics.
Losing the first two games of that series should put any remaining embers of hope to bed. The long odds of late August have become near-impossible ones with only a few days gone in September, as the team must make up a seven-game deficit with 20 contests left to go.
The word Mariners manager Dan Wilson used after Friday’s 7-6 defeat wasn’t “tough”; it was “difficult” as he began his immediate recap postgame and “frustrating” as he concluded it. But the sentiment was identical, seemingly homologous to the great gray mass of clouds over T-Mobile Park as summer turns to autumn. Such has been the season in 2026.
Not to mention the fact that Lazaro Montes left the game early.
Logan Gilbert gave up five runs on four homers in the third as his heaters went south.
“I Was Trying to Be Me”: Lazaro Montes Excels in MLB Debut, M’s Win 9-6
Yordan Alvarez comparisons had long since fallen out of favor for Lazaro Montes, at least in neutral outlets. Although his power was palpable throughout his minor league tenure (he had 38 homers between Double-A and Triple-A between the beginning of the year and his promotion on Sept. 1), his swing-and-miss proclivities were a sharp departure from the imposing contact rates of perhaps the most complete hitter among the current generation.
The jury still doubts that Montes will be sterling Alvarez, while he still has more work to do to prove whether he was called up at the right time. But there’s no disputing that the Mariners’ most recent call-up had one of the best debuts anyone could possibly ask for.
When a slicing fly ball to dead center disappeared into the triangular mass of fans in that particular nook of Fenway Park’s iconic grandstands, Montes became the first Cuban player since Alvarez to homer in his MLB debut. He became the 38th debutant in baseball history to log a least a homer, walk, and two total hits, joining a club inaugurated by “Frosty Bill” Duggleby in 1898 [1].
“I was trying to be me, be myself like they told me and like I learned,” Montes said after the game. “And giving 100% no matter what happens.”
George Kirby Gem Powers Mariners Series Win vs. Phillies
It’s hard to describe how badly George Kirby needed the start he got on Tuesday night. On the other hand, it’s rather easy to describe how badly the Mariners need every win they can get this month and for the rest of the 2026 season.
One win got the M’s to a 64-69 record. Matching their 90-win total from 2025 would require an impossible 26-3 run for the rest of the year, but luckily for the team, they don’t need that. In an embarrassing showing for the sport of baseball itself, 81 wins (17-12 over the rest of the year) would probably get them a division crown; a true heater of, say, 20-9 over the rest of the season would be an easy division clincher.
The other way to look at things is that, even in a year where going .500 probably wins them the division, the Mariners - who had World Series aspirations before the season began - need to put together at least a light heater just to make the playoffs.
The only way ahead is forward, however, and they got one notch closer on Tuesday with their 4-1 victory.
George Kirby reached the eighth, a welcome respite from his recent form.
“George was really the story today,” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson after Tuesday’s game.
Kirby had been lit up from every angle in his previous five outings, giving up six homers and only striking out 13 while walking eight with a 7.13 ERA. This was even with a seven-inning, no-run outing among this stretch, but every other game had seen him get lit up Chicago-style: early and often.
Leo Rivas Walks Off Cubs, Gives M’s Homestand Jolt
It’s the kind of thing that engenders legitimate hope in a team so downtrodden, but it’s the kind of thing fringe Mariners role players have done for decades in ultimately sour-ending seasons.
Regardless of the view from 30,000 feet, it was a magical moment for those celebrating within a three-foot radius of Leo Rivas in the bottom of the 10th on Friday night.
The game had been a back-and-forth affair between the M’s and Cubs, two teams with high expectations going into 2026 but only one of whom had performed up to snuff. At times, Seattle looked like the team they had constructed on paper, with Brendan Donovan and Cal Raleigh both producing runs. At others, the Cubs ambushed mistake pitches from multiple Mariners pitchers, and it had gone to extras before Seattle triumphed 6-5.
Emerson Hancock recovered from early struggles to put together almost six innings.
During the first half of the season, Mariners starting pitching had the sixth best ERA, fifth best StatCast expected ERA (xERA [1]), best fielding independent pitching (FIP [2]) and third best expected FIP (xFIP [3]) of any rotation in baseball.
In the second half, however, Seattle’s starters have had the seventh worst ERA, fourth worst FIP, and ninth worst xFIP. Their xERA ranking of 10th best since the break is small consolation with their struggles spanning all the non-StatCast metrics. They went from a league-best 11.0 starting pitcher FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) pre-break to a second-to-last 0.5 fWAR post-break.
Mariners Survive Brewers, Gain Ground in Wild Card Race
Seattle came limping into Milwaukee after getting pummeled 22-0 the night before, looking to exorcise some demons against the Brewers on Wednesday night. Facing former top prospect Dustin May, the Mariners got the bats going early, plating four runs in the first inning before ultimately winning 7-5.
Current Cy Young candidate Logan Gilbert, emboldened by an early lead, battled through five innings before being pulled in the sixth. Likely two batters too late.
As has been the case all season, Dan Wilson made another questionable decision that nearly cost his team the game. But his players persevered, allowing Seattle to gain considerable ground in the wild-card race.
Did Seattle have a great offensive performance? Absolutely. Were they simultaneously incredibly lucky? Unequivocally. That’s a luxury not often enjoyed by this team as it tries to turn its season around.
Mariners’ Gutsy Series Win Offers Team Last Lifeline for 2026 Season
When Andrés Muñoz got Taylor Trammell to chase a changeup for strike three on Sunday, he yelled with a ferocity rarely seen even from a man called “Señor Smoke”.
It was an angry, happy catharsis. Had he made slightly better pitches to Jose Altuve or Daulton Varsho two days prior, the Mariners would have swept the Astros and put some real heat on the once and future AL West champions; they would have been two games back of their rivals with the tiebreaker long since clinched.
Instead, the M’s are four games back with 37 left to play. But there’s no use crying over spilt milk, and Muñoz made sure to redeem himself in the bottom of the ninth in the Houston rubber match.
“To be honest with you, that - especially here - hurts a lot when those things happen, because you feel like you let the team down,” Muñoz said. “But I’ve been through these situations a lot, and I’m able to just flush those things easier, especially with the outing that I had.”
Getting to that one-run lead wasn’t as simple as it might have been based on the way the M’s offense had been playing earlier in the series. Unlike the first two contests, when the team got it done with runners on, it was a return to regular programming on Sunday night as they went 1-11 with runners in scoring position.
The M’s, regardless, logged a badly-needed 3-2 win.
Cal Raleigh recorded the mother of all Crawford Box jobs in the sixth, a much-needed stroke of luck.
The winning run on Sunday was a 327-foot fly ball that left the bat at a 45-degree angle. Since the beginning of the StatCast era in 2015, there have been 57 such batted balls - and Raleigh’s was just the second to become a hit (the first was this Yandy Díaz deep fly in a minor league stadium).
Mariners' Bullpen Blows Another Lead as Houston Walks it Off in Extras
The Seattle Mariners came limping into Houston having won only one of their last six games. After digging themselves into a three-run deficit early, Dan Wilson’s squad came storming back in the eighth to send the opening game of a critical series to extra innings.
But despite taking a 7-5 lead in the 10th, the bad luck continued, as Houston orchestrated a back-breaking comeback of its own, further putting the AL West division out of reach as a three-run home run by Christian Walker vaulted the Astros to an 8-7 win.
It wasn’t all bad news, as the final result might suggest. Starter George Kirby pitched better than the box score might indicate, and the M’s offense seemingly woke up from a season-long slumber.
A top-30 prospect also made his debut for the team. Brock Rodden debuted at shortstop and looked like a major leaguer already, sparking questions about why he wasn’t brought up earlier given the recent controversy surrounding Colt Emerson’s secret wrist injury.
Unfortunately, the backend of the bullpen surprisingly fell apart with the bats waking up, blowing a two-run lead in the 10th and showing once again that another bullpen acquisition was needed at the trade deadline in what has become quite the missed opportunity for Jerry Dipoto.
Seattle continues to slip further and further from playoff contention, and its players will need to execute to get this squad back on track with time running out to crawl back into the race.
“We Know Where We Are At”: Lone M’s Win in Bronx Shows Blueprint Despite Not Being Enough by Itself
Over the past seven games, the Mariners have found themselves outscored 34-11. It was 34-10 going into Thursday’s afternoon contest in the Bronx; the team rode a stellar six-inning, seven-punchout, no-run start from Logan Gilbert to break an ugly six-game losing streak. The spell, starting in Seattle against the Tigers, had seen them finally stop treading water - because they had sunk like a stone. Were it not for some unexpected production on Wednesday (ultimately in vain as the pitching gave up 10 runs that day), the team’s scoring would have been better described not in runs per game but games per run, Anthony Bennett style.
When things go this pear-shaped for a baseball team, a lot of fingers get pointed and plenty of blame gets cast. The Mariners are 57-65, having barely avoided two straight sweeps to the two top teams in the AL; there’s certainly have plenty of blame to go around. No one is hitting, the team’s hurlers aren’t putting up quality starts, and even when they have a lead, their bullpen blows up and another ugly L goes up on the calendar. Perhaps the finger can go at skipper Dan Wilson, or president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, or the hitting crew of Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer, or to strength and conditioning, or a player development side that can’t seem to turn good players into great ones, or an analytics department that seems to follow more than it leads, or owner John Stanton. Or maybe everybody, or maybe nobody.
The players blame people far more familiar: themselves. For a team that constantly talks about the importance of belief, the bluntness of their self-doubt is a bullhorn.
“It starts with me. I’m awful,” Cal Raleigh noted after their Tuesday 4-1 loss to open the series in New York. Over the course of the 2026 season, Raleigh has a .159/.267/.297 slash line, good for a worse batting average and OPS+ than all but one of Dave Valle’s Mariners seasons. Raleigh hadn’t been scheduled to speak to media that day, he simply held an impromptu presser where he called himself horrid in every possible way. Can you blame him for feeling like that?
Winning 1-0 on a Thursday Weston Wilson homer won’t meaningfully change things by itself; the M’s have seen too many would-be turnarounds go belly-up to believe that one win means the job is finished. That was true when they were a pair of games over .500, that was true when they were a pair of games under. 500, and it’s still true now that they’re seven games underwater.
Colt Emerson, Mariners Overcome Bullpen Collapse for Second Straight Walk-Off Win vs Twins
The Seattle Mariners raced out to an early 6-0 lead before their bullpen imploded in the eighth inning, allowing the Minnesota Twins to rally to inexplicably tie the game. But after blowing a save in the ninth, the Mariners redeemed themselves for their second walk-off win in as many days.
Rookie Colt Emerson’s hard-hit walk-off single capped another outstanding offensive performance by a club that has struggled with consistency swinging the bats this season. Combined with a scoreless seven innings from George Kirby, it looked like a blowout in the making, but these M’s like to give fans cardiac trouble.
The bullpen had other plans, with several top arms giving up timely home runs to allow their fellow wild-card contender back into the game. How did they squander a six-run lead before managing to survive with the win?
Mariners Walk Off Twins, Keep Momentum Alive Ahead of Trade Deadline
With the trade deadline just two days away, the Seattle Mariners’ season seemingly hinged on Saturday's game against the Minnesota Twins. With the contest tied 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth, Cal Raleigh delivered, driving home the winning run in walk-off fashion.
Seattle has struggled to put teams away all season, and that trend continued during the second game of the series. The Mariners scored three runs across the first two innings but were held scoreless the rest of the way until the ninth. This allowed the Twins to claw their way back, ultimately tying it up in the seventh inning.
The Mariners need to start stacking wins to make the playoffs, and Saturday's victory showed how they can do that.
Five Mariners Homers Overcome Heavy-Hitting Dodgers in Chavez Ravine Thriller
The Mariners’ disastrous series against the Rangers finally put to rest the notion of the team as the AL West favorite, with a 52-55 record and a two and a half game deficit in the division with a month-long gauntlet fast approaching. What had been true for the whole season was now eminently evident to the entirety of the dugout: that both greater commitment and greater precision are needed in order to return to the playoffs, much less to the precipice of the pennant.
Iron, as they say, sharpens iron; who better to face than the two-time defending champion Dodgers? They immediately displayed why their offense is one of the best in baseball, working to quickly punish whatever Luis Castillo pitches leaked out over the plate. But the Mariners, needing a win to keep pace with the Rangers and Astros ahead of them, managed to put together a thrilling 7-6 victory on the backs of five home runs and some high-stress relief pitching.
It was the first Mariners win against the Dodgers since April 19, 2021. It was the first Mariners win in Dodger Stadium since June 28, 2009. To put it another way: the last time the M’s beat the Dodgers in the City of Angels, Rob Refsnyder was 18, Cal Raleigh was 12, Dominic Canzone was 11, and Julio Rodríguez was eight. Those were the four M’s to go deep on Tuesday.
Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez hit a homer in the same game for the first time since April.
Before the season began, the duo of Rodríguez and Raleigh were projected to accrue between five and six wins above replacement (WAR) each. With 55 games left in the season, Rodríguez had 1.8 FanGraphs WAR (fWAR) and Raleigh 0.5, each reflective of injury-shortened years with significant struggles - especially in the case of Raleigh, who had a .165/.269/.300 slash line going into Tuesday.
The struggling catcher found himself on the IL for roughly a month-long stretch of time straddling May and June, but he appeared set to roar back on the scene after a homer-studded rehab assignment in Tacoma. That ended up being a mirage; Raleigh had a .170/.304/.277 slash line between his return on June 16 and the end of the Rangers series on July 27. The power stroke was especially absent, as he had just three homers during these 33 games.
Canzone Clinches Comeback in Texas, Keeps Mariners Season Alive
When Julio Rodríguez popped a two-on, one-out, right-down-Broadway cutter haplessly into center field, it looked like the moment when the downfall was obvious. This downfall, like many, was perhaps better conceptualized as a calque of the word’s German equivalent: going under - a slow process that takes a while to materialize after it is set into motion, but which becomes ever clearer until there is a point when it is undeniable.
On the flip side, the decision seemed easy for the brass. A Mariners loss would put the team three and a half games underneath the division lead right before the deadline, at a time when many teams would be looking for the likes of Randy Arozarena or even George Kirby or Logan Gilbert.
If Dominic Canzone failed to reach base, it would be the culmination of multiple wasted opportunities; the M’s had two men on with one out in the fourth and the same amount of baserunners with no outs in the sixth, all with nothing to show for it. The Texas Rangers’ two-run lead was a number not insurmountable but that seemed hard to overcome for an offense whose approach could scarcely have been called Fabian over the course of the year, because the Fabian Strategy actually worked.
Rangers reliever Cole Winn fell behind Canzone 2-0 and hung a splitter right down the pipe, a little below the middle of the zone. For the first time in more than two weeks, Canzone walloped a homer, putting the Mariners in the lead.
“I got him 2-0 pretty quickly, and with first and second there, he’s gotta come in the zone with something, and they’d been throwing me soft pretty much the whole series,” Canzone told Mariners TV’s Brad Adam. “Not that I was necessarily sitting on it, but just trying to get something elevated and get it in the air.”
Seattle, who had been looking for the game to latch onto as a starting point, clung to their lead for the rest of the game, winning 6-4 and preventing - for now - calamity.
Mariners Build Momentum Ahead of Trade Deadline, Clinch Series Win With 6-3 Win vs. Giants
Seattle won their second straight game against the lowly Giants 6-3. Behind six strong innings from starter Logan Gilbert, a shutdown bullpen, and timely hitting, the Mariners looked primed to go on a run to put their first-half struggles in the rearview mirror.
With two weeks remaining until the trade deadline, Seattle needed to come out of the All-Star break with some urgency. After getting throttled in the first game of the series 7-0, it looked like the team had not used their time off to reset well. But after two satisfying victories, and the struggling Cincinnati Reds coming into town, Seattle is one more series win away from cementing itself as a buyer in the wide-open American League.
Dan Wilson pushed all the right buttons Sunday, a rare sentence for this Mariners club. His timely deployment of pinch-hitters and bullpen usage showcased what this ballclub can look like at its best. Yet there are still some things to work on as with any baseball team.
Bullpen Rises to Occasion as Mariners Snap Five-Game Skid, Take Series Finale From Rays
Finally putting an end to their losing ways, the Seattle Mariners’ offense showed up early and the bullpen delivered a brilliant performance in a resounding 8-2 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays, salvaging the series finale to avoid the sweep going into the All-Star break.
The Mariners needed to use seven pitchers to secure the win due to a scary first inning injury to starter Emerson Hancock that resulted in him exiting the contest an inning later. The offense picked the ‘pen up, however, plating seven runs by the fourth inning, and eight runs overall.
It was a rare complete team performance by Seattle, and manager Dan Wilson hopes to get some key players back from injury coming out of the break while building off his team’s lights-out execution as the season marches towards the playoffs.
“Talk about a team effort from top to bottom today,” Wilson said afterward.
Mariners Squander Comeback Effort in Extras, Fall in 6-5 Walk-Off Heartbreaker to Marlins
The Seattle Mariners flew into south Florida as victors of five of their last six games, riding a wave of momentum back to the top of the AL West standings. Ready to build on their back-to-back series wins, Seattle was primed to go on a winning streak heading into the All-Star break this upcoming weekend.
The upstart Marlins had other plans, however, walking off their American League opponent in the bottom of the 10th inning to steal the series opener.
Hurler Bryan Woo continued to struggle on the road, allowing 10 baserunners and three runs across just five innings.The Marlins raced ahead to a 4-0 lead as the Mariners failed to score until the fifth. Seattle had the bases loaded in the fourth inning and came away with no runs, continuing a trend where the team seemingly forgets how to hit until the fifth inning or later.
Seattle rallied to a 5-4 lead in the eighth, but it proved insufficient as they were walked off two innings later, sealing another frustrating loss for a team intent on playing below their potential.
Bryce Miller Gem Gives M’s Sweep of Halos Despite Absent Offense
The last time the M’s and Angels faced each other, it was one of many disappointing series for the Mariners during the first half of the season. Seattle won the first game of the set, but as they would do several times in the following weeks and months, they dropped the final two and lost the series as their offense died and the pitching got ambushed.
Seattle’s bats may have fallen incredibly silent on Thursday evening as the two squads finished their three-game series the day after both took a rest due to a 2026 World Cup game a block away, but Bryce Miller beared down once again as he utterly stymied the Angels’ hitters inning after inning on his way to seven frames of brilliance. That, more than anything, was the bedrock of the team’s 1-0 win.
Bryce Miller didn’t give up a hit in the first six innings as his excellent year continued.
Even with his innings being limited with the piggybacks, Miller had been one of the Mariners’ most fearsome pitchers since returning from the injured list. His expert mixture of a four-seamer, slider, splitter throughout his starts produced tough scenes for opposing hitters.
Miller had a bit of a tougher time in his previous outing against the Pirates, however. His three earned runs in 5 ⅔ innings were perhaps downstream of the fact that the slider was conspicuously absent from his workhorse usage, with the hurler reliant on just his four-seamer and splitter for 59% of his offerings.
And yet Miller did much the same against the Angels on Thursday to clearly better results. Halo hitters went down one after another as they couldn’t effectively differentiate between his two go-to offerings. The visitors had 10 whiffs and five strikeouts during the first three innings, with Miller at 35 pitches through those frames. A big part of this was the fact that he could control his splitter effectively once his (already minimal) opening jitters were over.
Clutch Hits Overcome Absent Slug, Ample Strikeouts; Mariners Log Second Straight Win
For the first time since June 9, the Mariners won back-to-back games. Tuesday night’s 8-3 victory over the Angels marked that occasion, one that the Mariners may want to quickly forget, but the way the team played during the game is something they surely want to keep going forward as they look to claw their way into a secure first place slot.
Both starter Bryan Woo and the Mariners’ clutch hitting had a recovery, as the hurler got the win and the quality start while the team went 5-13 with runners in scoring position. There were still issues to iron out: Cal Raleigh continued scuffling at the dish, the team struck out 16 times, and there was just one extra-base knock. But they papered over their flaws on Tuesday and notched another step in their road to retaking the division.
Bryan Woo recovered from his clunker by the Allegheny, pitching into the seventh and getting the win.
Woo was the undisputed ace of the rotation in 2025, but his struggles in 2026 have been well-documented. Most recently, he gave up five runs in a four-inning outing against the Pittsburgh Pirates, letting one inning run away from him and leaving well before he would have liked to. Harboring evident frustration and seemingly in a mental block, it was an outing that could have defined rock bottom for a pitcher.
Perhaps that description is apt, because Woo bounced back in force on Tuesday. Like many of the Mariners struggles that seem to have been put on hold for two games against the Angels, it’s unclear whether it’s a dead cat bounce or the beginnings of a true resurgence, but Woo certainly shoved like it was the latter during his 6 ⅓ innings of work against the Halos.
Unlike many of his outings, where he takes down the order the first time through with nothing but the fastball, Woo was mixing everything in his arsenal right from the rip on Tuesday. Leadoff man Zach Neto fought with the Mariners hurler in an eight-pitch at-bat to begin the game, and Woo’s deliveries were as follows: three sinkers, two four-seamers, two sliders, and a sweeper. Neto grounded out and Woo continued with the kitchen-sink approach.
Mariners Pitchers Lock Down Win Despite Continued Batting Sluggishness
A bobble from Guardians second baseman Travis Bazzana in the top of the seventh seemed like the first piece of good luck the Mariners had gotten in a very long time. It came with two outs and a man on third, turning what would have been an inning-ending grounder into a go-ahead run for the Mariners. It proved the winning run in Seattle’s 3-1 victory against Cleveland.
On the one hand, none of their issues really fixed themselves. The team couldn’t get a fourth run for the 12th straight game, marking just the third such streak in team history. Pitch recognition woes and issues against left-handers continued with no real end in sight. But on the other hand, for the fifth time in those dozen games, it was enough.
Luis Castillo tossed a quality start, with all his pitches in action.
Mariners starter Luis Castillo came into the game with a better track record since the onset of his first piggyback outing, but there had still been notable inconsistencies for him. Despite a 3.38 ERA in his six appearances since the first piggyback, he was still without a quality start aside from his first outing of the year. Going into a game where the M’s did nothing but continue to crawl along on offense, he needed to find his best stuff for a full start.
Luckily for the M’s, Castillo had a firm command of all three of the pitches he needs to build a good outing. The slider was his most common delivery, followed by the four-seamer and changeup in that order, but he threw each quite often with the occasional sinker thrown in.
Cole Young’s Hometown Game-Winner Marks Early Career Highlight, M’s Win 3-2
Neither Pittsburgh nor Seattle sit directly beside an ocean (though Puget Sound of course connects quite nicely to the Pacific and gives the Emerald City a strong oceangoing port), yet these teams cleared the decks for their first of three sea battles on Tuesday night.
It was a low-scoring affair, but the Mariners’ two cannonballs were enough to seal the deal as they came out ahead 3-2. The one homer had special significance for Cal Raleigh, as it was his first big fly since returning from the IL, but it was the second that shone brightest: Seattle’s own Yinzer flipped the score from a Mariners deficit to a Mariners lead.
Triumphant homecoming is one of humanity’s oldest seagoing motifs, but with a 22-year-old hitting three homers in a month for the second time in his career, the game had more to do with the beginning of Young’s odyssey than its end.
Cole Young blasted a go-ahead homer in his Pittsburgh homecoming.
Going into Tuesday, the Mariners were tied with the Twins for the second-worst winning percentage (.094) when trailing a game at the beginning of the seventh inning, having won three of 32 such contests. The only teams worse in this regard (the Giants, Angels, Guardians, Astros, Rangers, and Royals) had a combined 212-261 record and .448 winning percentage.
For comparison, the two teams FanGraphs projects as more likely than the Mariners to win it all (the Yankees and Dodgers) have a combined .196 winning percentage when entering the seventh inning in a deficit. The Brewers, Braves, Phillies, and Rays - the next four teams down after the M’s on FanGraphs’ projections - had a combined .227 winning percentage in games where they entered the seventh inning losing.
And when the top of the seventh began on Tuesday, the M’s trailed 2-1, marking the 33rd time they had entered that inning with a deficit in the season. Pirates starting pitcher Mitch Keller had thrown just 72 pitches, the M’s struggles continuing with the bat as they didn’t break up his efficiency or get many runs across.
Gilbert, Mariners Salvage Red Sox Matinee, Keep Heads Above Water
All wins are equal on the final sheet of standings at the end of the year, but not all these wins mean the same things when they are played. Some wins are triumphant jewels in the crowns of great streaks, others are dead cat bounces for a team plummeting into the gutter. The Mariners’ 3-1 win over the Red Sox on Sunday was neither of those, but it was the definitional salvaged game, turning what could have been a sweep to go under .500 on the summer solstice into a lost series and a 40-39 record with the halfway point nearly reached.
The offense, for the eighth straight game, didn’t impress, but the Mariners worked a win anyway thanks to an incredible start from a rebounding elite arm, a couple of timely hits, and a sharp bullpen. And yet the win may be pyrrhic, with another key player falling to the injury bug.
Logan Gilbert worked into the seventh and kept the Red Sox to a single run.
While the Mariners haven’t had everyone clicking at the same time, they have had the relative luxury of often getting a cold man hot once their hot man goes cold. While Emerson Hancock has seemingly taken a big step back over the past two outings, Logan Gilbert has finally settled into a real adjustment against the five-and-dive outings and long at-bats that had created them.
This adjustment has been quite simple and equally effective: instead of relying solely on his secondary pitches in favorable counts - a strategy that teams effectively countered by simply laying off the low sliders and buried splitters they would see time and time again - Gilbert has truly mixed things up with fastballs, curveballs, splitters, and sliders in these counts. This means, in the aggregate, that he is throwing the heater a lot more.
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