Mariners Groove Back Over .500, Take Game 2 vs. Diamondbacks
Emerald City Spectrum reporter Callaghan Bluechel goes over the Mariners' Saturday win against the Diamondbacks, their position in the AL West, and what has produced their five-game win streak.
Welcome to the Show: Colt Emerson Whacks Big Jack for First Career Hit, M’s Top White Sox 6-1
On Sunday morning, the Mariners brass was faced with a decision. Brendan Donovan had re-injured his groin during a game against the Astros, and with Leo Rivas’ struggles continuing unabated and an unclear timeline for Patrick Wisdom (though he was evidently taken off the IL the following day), the time was arriving for 20-year-old top prospect Colt Emerson. At least, that’s the decision that the front office made.
“We think he’s the best option,” Hollander said about Emerson on Sunday. “This period will give him some runway; this is not a 15 at-bat or a 20 at-bat tryout to see if he’s capable of taking the job and running with it for the rest of the year.”
One key homer does not a good player make, but when Emerson sent a low liner a hair’s breadth above the yellow crown of T-Mobile park’s right field wall in the bottom of the eighth - a shot that put the M’s up by the 6-1 score that would prove final - Seattle got a glimpse of things that may be.
Colt Emerson’s first major league hit was a three-run homer to turn a close lead into a comfortable one.
When Emerson went up to the dish, the momentum of the game had left a growing pit in many stomachs across the Northwest. Seattle had scored one run on a Julio Rodríguez bomb in the first, another on a third inning Randy Arozarena RBI double that was more memorable for what happened between second and third, and a run-scoring Josh Naylor single in the sixth.
But despite an electric double steal growing the inning into a second-and-third, one out opportunity, neither Cole Young nor Emerson had cashed in, and a homer followed by a bunch of stranded traffic had put the wind at the White Sox’ back.
Arozarena, Canzone Crush Stros Pitching, Raleigh Breaks Slump in 10-2 Mariner Win
Monday night and Tuesday night represented two very different kinds of Mariners victories. In the bottom of the ninth on the first night, the M’s got a win by the skin of their teeth, with Andrés Muñoz getting the better of Yordan Alvarez to finish out a badly-needed win for the M’s.
When Domingo González wrapped up the bottom of the ninth on Tuesday, things were far less tense. Although the Astros had runners on first and third, the M’s were already up 10-2, and with the final out, that was the final score. It was sublimely special for González, who had just completed his very first inning, but the Mariners’ offensive explosion had long since shattered all but the slightest chance of even the mighty Astros offense clawing back into the match.
Against the whole gamut of Houston hurlers they faced on Tuesday, the Mariners put up numbers. They scored 10 runs on 11 hits, six walks, and two batters hit by a pitch; they got hard hits on 57.6% of their batted balls. With runners in scoring position, the M’s went 2-for-8, but one of those hits was Dominic Canzone’s first career grand slam, which he slammed on the first pitch Astros starter Tatsuya Imai sent his way in the fourth inning.
Seattle took Tatsuya Imai to Randyland and the Can-zone.
The Astros’ big pitching signing of the offseason, Tatsuya Imai, hasn’t turned out how Houston had hoped in the first month and a half of the season. The last time he faced Seattle, he had to be pulled with one out in the first inning due to four walks and one hit batsman, then he wound up on the IL with right arm fatigue. He did better on his return start on Tuesday on account of the fact he went four innings. That’s about the only positive Joe Espada’s club got out of the outing.
Big-Time Bryan Woo Bounce-Back Outing Gives Mariners Series Win vs. Atlanta
It might have seemed that the Atlanta Braves were the worst possible team for a struggling Bryan Woo to face. Woo, whose arsenal depends almost entirely on two zippy fastballs thrown over the plate, was set to face an aggressive squad that feasted on fastballs. That ability to jump on the heater has been the lynchpin of Atlanta’s stellar opening salvo of the 2026 campaign, and Woo had to stare them down as the M’s tried to be the very first team to hand the Braves a series defeat.
On the other side of the ball, the Mariners needed to produce more with the stick, having logged quite a few uncompetitive innings on offense in both previous games in the series, with a pair of well-timed homers providing just enough runs on Monday but not on Tuesday. The hitting took a bit of an improvement overall on Wednesday, and though the sequencing didn’t do them many favors, the runs they scraped across were enough for a 3-1 victory.
There were banner days for several involved. For Julio Rodríguez, who came about 20 feet from denting the newly-unveiled Randy Johnson plaque with a mammoth homer; for Cole Young, who put together a three-hit outing; and for Josh Naylor, who showed up with the glove, the bat, and the well-renowned mind to find stolen bases.
But it all started with the guy on the mound, who gave his team an excellent chance to win the game.
Bumpy Stretch For Rotation Blocking Mariners’ Breakthrough
One of the clear strengths of the Seattle Mariners at the beginning of the 2026 season was their starting rotation. Last season, they ranked fourth in Major League Baseball in innings pitched as a starting rotation and 11th in FIP (which is ERA but factoring out fielding luck).
Bryan Woo and Luis Castillo eclipsed 180 innings pitched. Two of their starters had an ERA better than 3.50. Three of them exceeded 160 strikeouts. Four of their starters made at least 23 starts last season. Eight different players needed to make at least two starts. For context, the World Series champion Dodgers had 14 different players make multiple starts. The American League champion Blue Jays needed 11 such starters.
They had one of the strongest, most reliable rotations in baseball last year. With the same cast of characters coming into 2026, the consensus was the Mariners would be able to lean on their starting pitchers to another postseason run. However, over the last few weeks, the starting pitching has not been the strength, but the weakness of this Mariners club.
Mariners Suffer Second Straight Bryan Woo Beating, Drop Randy Johnson Series Opener to Royals
The Mariners and Royals spent most of Friday evening locked in a back-and-forth batter’s duel, with the Royals eventually coming out in front. In all the action of the game - from the Royals knocking four first inning runs off Bryan Woo to Julio Rodríguez’ two homers to a late Kansas City rally off Jose A. Ferrer to Alex Hoppe blowing down the Royals’ best hitters in the ninth only for the Mariners to go down with a whimper in the bottom half by a 7-6 score - there were a lot of moments that made the difference.
But among those, there is one that is perhaps most instructive in two concepts: one, that baseball is a game of inches where defense matters (you already knew that), and two, that a run in the first is worth as much as a run in the ninth. This isn’t about ABS, but based on how ABS strategy is often discussed, a reminder is perhaps in order.
Bryan Woo’s two bad bookends fell in two separate but similar buckets.
Woo came into his start against the Cardinals as a potential clear Mariners ace. He left the sixth inning of his start against the Royals having given up 13 runs in his last nine innings and carrying a 4.61 ERA.
The story of how he got rocked for seven runs in three innings against the Redbirds has already been told, though that game was not defined by the bad start thanks to a big-time offensive showing. The M’s got four homers to power six runs at home, but it wasn’t enough this time.
Another “Rock” Detonation Raises Rotation Questions for Mariners
In Luis Castillo’s first start of the season, he blew down the New York Yankees with basically two pitches: his four-seamer and slider.
Over the following five outings, Castillo has given up less than four runs just once and has not finished a single sixth inning. Over that time, he has given up 35 hits, 24 runs, and 20 earned runs in 22 ⅓ innings, an 8.06 ERA over that time.
Five of those innings came on Monday night in rainy Minnesota. Although in his previous four starts (also struggles of outings, though not without bad defense behind him), he had struck out 16 and issued seven walks while giving up two homers - it was all hits in the field that had sunk him - Monday’s game was bad in the so-called three true outcomes and bad in the actual result. Castillo gave up two home runs, walked two batters, and struck out three. He gave up seven hits in total and just as many runs.
The Mariners’ loss on Monday started and ended, mostly, with Castillo’s bad start. Sure, debutant Alex Hoppe’s second inning of work fell off the rails as his control waned and hitters adjusted to his slider, but the M’s had essentially decided on pushing Hoppe as far as they could to mop up the game. Sure, the Mariners offense took quite a while to wake up, but they managed to put four runs on the board.
The question has to be raised: does Castillo’s slump warrant a change in outlook for the Mariners about how to utilize him for the rest of the season?
M’s Beat Cards 11-9 in Bizarre Back-and-Forth Battle Despite Woo Blowup
Whatever happened between the Mariners and Cardinals on Saturday afternoon in Busch Stadium, it was one of the most beautiful examples of the chaos and unpredictability inherent in baseball. Perhaps it was fitting that all nine innings were played in the sun, what with the pastoral pastime unfolding in such a way as it did.
This was a game where Connor Joe knocked a game-tying single and Will Wilson drove in two of the Mariners’ runs, while Bryan Woo got smacked around for four homers and seven runs in just three innings pitched. Cole Young was a triple away from the cycle, while Mitch Garver had a multi-hit game even while getting a would-be homer robbed by the glove of Redbirds left fielder Nathan Church - who in turn mashed two big flies of his own but made the final two outs of the Mariners’ 11-9 victory.
And it was Leo Rivas, the same man who came into the game hitting .141, who delivered the go-ahead hit in the top of the ninth. Unlike many of the previous games, Rivas started on the bench on Saturday, logging two appearances. But in a game full of inflection points and twists, Rivas’ two appearances were some of the biggest moments of the game.
Julio Rodríguez set the tone with a second deck shot in the top of the first and Will Wilson launched his first career homer in the second.
Coming into Saturday, Julio Rodríguez had logged a hit in 16 of his past 48 at-bats, but 12 of those had been singles. Still, his process had been very sound after the slump of his first couple weeks, with Rodríguez driving stuff up the middle, drawing walks, and limiting strikeouts.
Mariners Slug Enough Sunday Homers, Take Home Series against Rangers
When the M’s dropped Friday night’s game 5-0, their ninth straight loss against non-Astros teams, they found themselves on the edge of disaster. But two games later, they aren’t in that bad of a spot for the rest of the year, with the season series against the Rangers a manageable 2-4 despite the sweep in Arlington.
Sunday’s rubber match was decided by two things: home runs and Bryan Woo. Seattle scored all its runs via the longball in their 5-2 victory while Woo did Woo things on the rubber to keep the Rangers off the board for all but one inning of the game. It’s still a ways until a true turnaround can be declared, but the M’s did what they had to do in their weekend day games.
They also mash in the stellar Steelheads threads, for what it’s worth.
Bryan Woo dealt a cold dish to Rangers hitters, going seven innings and squeezing out most of the life from Seattle’s AL West foes.
One way to describe the skill of the Mariners pitching staff is as follows: on any given day, any of the Mariners starters can look like the ace. First among equals, however, is Bryan Woo. He had not looked any worse than his two stalwart previous years to start 2026, with a 2.16 ERA, 2.24 FIP, and 0.920 WHIP over his first four starts.
M’s Fall Back to Fallen Bats, Offense Goes Limp in 4-1 Loss to Padres
Seattle took full advantage of a get-right series in the standings, at least, but when it came to resetting the hitters, the lessons evidently didn’t stick. The lone run of the Mariners’ 4-1 loss to the Padres on Tuesday was a bases-loaded sacrifice fly, with no other sources of production. Bryan Woo got handed his second loss of the season thanks to the resurgent incapability of his hitters and a little bit of poor defense to boot.
It’s beginning to seem like this is what the 2026 Mariners offense really is.
The Mariners offense took a big step back against healthy MLB pitching, failing to capitalize on some early opportunities.
On Friday, the Mariners had begun a series of cold versus cold, taking on a skidding Astros club and spitting out their rivals with a four-game sweep. From near-disaster to near-.500 was one thing, but Tuesday’s game presented a contest of hot versus hot. The Padres entered the series coming off a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies and with a five game winning streak, though the Dodgers’ hot start meant that the Dads were further behind first in the NL West (two games) than the M’s were in the AL West (one and a half games).
But against Petco Park’s perennial playoff contenders rather than a banged-up (in the understatement of the century) Astros hurling staff, the M’s had to deal with good starters and elite relievers.
Mariners Trajectory Rapidly Approaches Inflection Point with Fifth Straight Loss
Despite an impressively bad two-decade playoff drought to begin the millennium, the Mariners haven’t been in the habit of fully burying themselves three weeks into the year, usually waiting until May to let everything fall apart in their down years, missing the mark in September during their good years, and crashing into the last wall like George Russell in Singapore in their great years.
But inexplicably yet unsurprisingly, the proverbial team bus looks like it’s being steered by a tumbleweed through a baker’s dozen games in 2026. The team’s stellar pitching has carried them to four wins, but a combination of atrocious defense and somehow worse hitting dropped their ninth game of the year (and fifth in a row) on Wednesday afternoon.
Seattle suffered their third (kind of fourth) shutout of the season, barely avoiding getting no-hit by MacKenzie Gore and co.
The Mariners offense, team-wide, has been having the kind of performance where 105 mile an hour groundouts to short are hopeful signs because the team is usually hitting 75 mile an hour groundouts to first.
Woo Strong Early, Mariners Falter Late in Extra-Innings Heartbreaker to Guardians
The Seattle Mariners entered Saturday night’s contest like one of your old roommates - still searching for singles. They checked that box, but it still wasn’t enough.
After a strong five-plus from Bryan Woo, Cleveland’s lineup scratched across three runs late at T-Mobile Park. Despite a late comeback in the ninth, the Mariners folded in extra innings as the Guardians won 6-5.
Woo strong but two-out rally in sixth spoils stellar start
Mariners starter Bryan Woo allowed just one baserunner through his first four innings of work, pumping his elite fastball time and time again: 59 of his 83 pitches on Saturday were the four-seamer, which stayed in the top half of the zone for five frames.
Mariners Release Opening Day Roster; Crawford, Miller Notably Absent with Injury
With opening day right around the corner for the Seattle Mariners - at 7:10 p.m. Pacific on Thursday against the Guardians - the team has released its first 26-man roster for the 2026 season. The top of the depth chart, of course, is very much all over the M’s roster, from returning superstars in Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez to new additions like Brendan Donovan and Jose A. Ferrer.
But of course it is not all sunshine and roses for the defending AL West champions. Longtime shortstop J.P. Crawford is out for the beginning of the year with a shoulder injury while Bryce Miller is working through an injury of his own, leaving holes in the middle infield and the back of the rotation. Leo Rivas is going to get some playing time at short in the meantime (and perhaps Cole Young might swivel
Mariners Repeat or Astros Return; Who is AL West’s Deadliest Warrior? Analyzing Division as 2026 Season Approaches
Ever since the Mariners’ dramatic September sweep on Houston’s home ground that all but sealed the division, 2026 has shaped up to be a close rematch between the two teams. Which team, if any, has the edge going into the season?
How Bryan Woo’s League-Best Heaters Anchored Mariners Rotation in 2025
The best pitcher on the 2025 Mariners got the biggest work out of just two pitches, hurling the best pair of pyrotechnics in baseball. How has Woo ridden these fastballs to greatness—and how can he improve from ace to Cy Young contender?
Decisions Behind Disaster: Managerial Tendencies Sunk Mariners in Game 7
Mariners manager Dan Wilson made a decision that will live in infamy during Game 7, and the mistake cost the M’s the season. That decision and others on Monday reflected long-visible managerial tendencies that Wilson will have to adjust come 2026.
Heartbreak: George Springer Ends Mariners Season in Game 7 of the ALCS
The Mariners couldn’t get it done. That much is not new; it has been true 48 times before. But the way it happened in 2025 was one that brought the city of Seattle closer than they had ever come—and that is why it stung the hardest.
Geno Breaks Out Rye Bread and Mustard in Game 5 Thriller; M’s One Win Away from Fall Classic
With their backs to the wall for what seemed like the 100th time in 2025, the Seattle Mariners came up big in a Game 5 for the history books. How did the M’s rise again from the grave on Friday afternoon?
Bryce Miller to Start Game 5 for Mariners, Woo Available from Bullpen
Mariners manager Dan Wilson announced that Bryce Miller will get the ball for Game 5, while team ace Bryan Woo will be one of the team’s bullpen options in what could be their final home game of 2025. The decision indicates some continued caution around Woo following his injury in Houston.
So It Begins: Woo-less Mariners Begin ALDS with Two Weekend Matchups
The time has finally come. October baseball is here in Seattle for just the sixth time in history as the M’s hunt their first appearance in the Fall Classic. How do the first two games match up for Seattle?
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