Mariners Offense Continues Slumber, Wastes Strong Logan Gilbert Start against Rays
The cathartic excitement of 45 seconds prior meant nothing as a 39,468-strong crowd saw Josh Naylor take the final pitch of the game for strike three, capping off a 2-1 loss and the Mariners’ 11th defeat in their past 16 games. Those fans booed relentlessly, their patience broken by the continued ineptitude of the offense.
Logan Gilbert had hurled well for Seattle, going deep into the seventh inning, but thanks to the lack of batting, it didn’t matter. The M’s barely avoided the third shutout in four games, and though they managed a run at the very end, it was still just the fifth run since the trade deadline: a stark reminder that the struggles the team had were due to the shortcomings of the stars.
Seattle went scoreless for most of the game, helpless against Rays pitching.
Where Gilbert was effective, Rays starter Drew Rasmussen was brilliant. Or perhaps the Mariners offense was once again lethargic; in truth, it was probably both.
Looking for any way to wake up the sluggish bats, Mariners manager Dan Wilson shook up the lineup. Taylor Ward led off the game with Cole Young batting second and Julio Rodríguez batting fifth. It didn’t work. Ward - whose struggles at T-Mobile Park continued in his fourth game with the M’s - went 0-4 with two strikeouts, while Young’s one hit didn’t come with anyone on base.
Seattle’s chances were relatively few and far between. Rodríguez knocked a one-out single and stole second before Naylor walked to put two men on. Brendan Donovan struck out and Cal Raleigh walked in turn to load the bases, but with Colt Emerson at the plate, Rasmussen knew what to do.
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.
Mariners' Loss to Dodgers Highlights Trade Deadline Needs
The M’s tried to build on their triumphant win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night but ultimately fell short, losing 4-2 after a late comeback was snuffed out by former Mariner closer Edwin Díaz in his return from injury.
Falling back down to earth, the Mariners played as they have all year. Fielding mistakes and an inability to hit left-handed pitching again plagued a roster talented enough to contend for a World Series. Against the defending champions, the Mariners struggled to match Los Angeles for most of the night.
With the MLB trade deadline less than a week away - unusually set for Aug. 3 - Wednesday’s game showed that Seattle needs to make some moves to go on a playoff run. Roster additions will help, but internal improvement remains just as important.
Struggles Against Lefties Return
The Mariners teed off in the opener of the series against Justin Wrobleski on Tuesday night, plating five runs against the Dodgers left-hander. It was a performance that instilled hope for the M’s that their yearlong struggles against southpaws were perhaps being mended. But they followed that up with a batting dud against southpaw Eric Lauer, who hurled six scoreless innings while only allowing one hit and one walk.
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.
Bats Take Nine-Inning Nap as Giants Pummel Mariners 7-0
A little over a year before Friday night, Julio Rodríguez announced that he would not participate in an All-Star Game he had been selected for, noting he would rather focus on improving his own game to a better standard.
Rodríguez wasn’t on the field on Friday, recovering from a concussion sustained earlier that month when a Nolan Schanuel throw bounced off the back of his head. Concussions are a case of needing however much time he needs in order to recover from the knock. But it means he can’t lead by example as he did after the Mariners’ horrific loss in the Bronx last year.
And it seems no other hitter is willing to put himself forward in such a way. The starting pitchers have borne the brunt of the blame when they’ve let the team down, especially Bryan Woo. But aside from some strong words from Cal Raleigh after a pungent loss in Cleveland - words that seemingly only went heeded for a six-game stretch - it has been crickets from the team leaders and an utter lack of urgency from the manager.
“It’s the first one back, and I think guys got back in the groove today and looking for us to come out tomorrow and have different results,” said M’s skipper Dan Wilson, “Obviously, you want to get off on the second half with a win, but just weren’t able to get anything going offensively and tomorrow we get a chance to turn that around.”
Those may have been Wilson’s strongest words after his team lost 7-0 to a shambolic San Francisco Giants squad that entered the game 41-55, second only to the Colorado Rockies in NL West helplessness. Sure, one of their few bright spots, a 21-year-old masher named Bryce Eldrige, did some of the damage. But the M’s made visiting starter Landen Roupp, a C-list pitcher on a good day, look like a veritable barnburner.
It can’t go on like this - well, in the immortal words of Mick McCarthy, it can - but the M’s won’t be a playoff team or even a .500 team if it does.
Mariners Drop Fourth Straight as Randy Arozarena Mishap Causes Tension
The Mariners are back under .500, with a 47-48 record nearly 60% of the way through the year, reeling from their fourth straight loss in Florida on Friday, this time by a score of 7-2. With the result, the Rays have won 12 of their last 16, while the M’s have lost 10 of their last 16.
The first inning was something of a microcosm of the way these two teams entered the game, one with tons of fight and firepower and the other limping along. The final line from that frame of zero runs for either team was reached two starkly different ways: from the Mariners, it was three ground ball outs, but for the Rays, it was a double, a walk, and an infield single to create a pickle for Mariners starter Luis Castillo.
Its greatest and most obvious microcosm was the defense. J.P. Crawford, on the first pitch of the game, dribbled a ball up the middle that Rays second baseman Richie Palacios snared on a falling run. Meanwhile, in the bottom half, the selfsame Crawford was unable to make a play on a ground ball hit directly his way and created the aforementioned infield single.
The obvious example of completely preventable defensive damage was when Randy Arozarena slowed to a trot on a fifth inning foul ball that was extremely catchable, after which Rays hitter Cedric Mullins cracked a home run to put the Rays up 3-1. That moment had infinitely more impact on the course of the game than what I’m about to describe - and caused plenty of tension between Arozarena and starter Luis Castillo - but there was another moment that summed up the energy (or lack thereof) among the Mariners.
Mariners Lose Batting Fight in Spite of Strong Glovework, Drop Series to Marlins
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” It’s one of those quotes that is older than its normal attribution (in this case, Dwight Eisenhower). Today’s common formulation of the phrase may indeed trace back to a coach at the University of Washington back in the late 1920s, but as with so many things that are said before they are written, its true origin lies somewhere in the primordial mud of history.
Many on the Mariners - especially skipper Dan Wilson - often discuss the team’s fight and willingness to claw back from adversity. But the defining moment of the team’s 2-0 loss to the Miami Marlins on Wednesday was its very end: with both ABS challenges available and two outs in the top of the ninth, Cole Young watched a 2-2 pitch outside get called strike three to end the game. He did not issue a challenge, simply hanging his head in shame as he walked back to the dugout. The brief window of time to get his team a lifeline passed quickly.
“I think sometimes that's not the first thing that pops into your head in that kind of a situation,” Wilson said, “but you still have to remind yourself sometimes about the ABS.”
But as they say - once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is a pattern. The Mariners have had games like Wednesday’s, where players across the lineup leave things on the table, plenty more times than that in 2026. If the players aren’t clawing and biting and fighting for every inch, if that aspect of the game is not a habit, then how deep of a well of resolve do the M’s really have? If the guy up at the plate with two outs in the ninth inning isn’t aware that the team has both challenges, how much water is this ship leaking?
The fight didn’t show up on offense, at least, though the M’s defense bailed themselves out of worse trouble. In a way, it was an inverse of Tuesday’s series opener when late action from the Mariners bats wasn’t enough to counteract the team’s defensive sluggishness. It was a loss all the same.
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.
Mariners Shove Second Straight Shutout of Blue Jays, Win Second Straight Series
How quickly things can turn around, how fleeting streaks of play can be.
That is both a consolation and a warning for the Mariners, who finished off a 5-1 homestand on Sunday with a 4-0 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. Just a week prior, they were reeling from one of the worst losses of the season, out of first with a losing record. They are now in first place by a game and a half and three games above .500.
It’s a good start, but the team still needs to build upon it with as many series wins as possible over the rest of the season. No team is as good as they look when they win nor as bad as they look when they lose, but every time the M’s look like the best versions of themselves, they inspire a little bit more confidence in others and in their own hearts.
Emerson Hancock had one of his best starts of the season, shoving seven scoreless.
With the piggyback permanently on hold, Emerson Hancock had the runway for a full start on Sunday. Going into his outing, however there were questions as to whether he could deal as well as he had earlier in the season.
Despite a career-best 3.47 ERA, 3.77 FIP, and 1.048 WHIP this year, Hancock’s last four starts had seen him give up 13 earned runs in 20 innings, an average of five frames per start. He had struggled to locate his sweeper during these outings, a fact that left him vulnerable to teams willing to ambush the fastball. These teams additionally benefited from some luck that his opponents hadn’t seen as much during his first couple months of work.
Mariners Blast Blue Jays on Independence Day, Still Need Consistency
About the only similarity between the Mariners’ game on July 3 and their game on July 4 was the general state of the Toronto Blue Jays offense. Even there, the degree of futility varied from day to day; the Jays had a generally mediocre offensive day on Friday and a horrific one on Saturday. The latter performance was largely due to the Mariner starter Logan Gilbert’s excellence.
Other than that, the games could not have been any more different. In one, the Mariners fell 2-0 as their offense failed to show up. In the other, Seattle torched the Blue Jays so badly that Myles Straw was pitching in the bottom of the eighth despite not being a pitcher. The 11-0 victory that the M’s put together was tremendously cathartic for a team that had been tied for fifth-lowest in run production during the month. The most catharsis of all was reserved for one Randy Arozarena, as despite his largely consistent career-year production, he had been the biggest standout in his team’s ugly batting performance the day prior: he lost both his team’s ABS challenges with nobody on in the first inning, neither in a conducive count for challenging.
Arozarena, as it turned out, was actually on the bad side of a 2-0 strike call in the bottom of the first with nobody on. This time, he didn’t challenge. The issues with his challenges in the first had been related to inning, yes, but challenging in the first inning isn’t bad if it’s a full count or there are men on base; but both of Arozarena’s challenges on Friday came with nobody on and without three balls. In any event, the Mariners left fielder whacked a double off the right field wall. Neither Dominic Canzone nor Cal Raleigh knocked him in, but perhaps it set a more favorable tone than the day prior, when the M’s were a few hairs away from being no-hit.
Randy Arozarena capped off a monster second inning with a grand slam.
Two men fell quickly to Jays starter Shane Bieber to begin the second, but the third out is no guarantee against any MLB offense. Cole Young lined a double into the right center gap and Victor Robles shot a liner of his own into left to log Seattle’s first run, but the real damage came a few minutes later as a single and a walk loaded the bases for the aforementioned Arozarena.
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.
Cole Young, George Kirby Blast Angels 6-2, Give Mariners Much-Needed Boost
The Mariners haven’t clawed their way out of the hole they dug over half a month in June. They are still a half game back in the AL West as the Rangers have forced them into a raise-or-fold situation.
But they began to dig a path on Monday, winning a game they needed to win and returning to a .500 record. They finally had some extra base hits and held a good lead - with mammoth homers off of Angels pitching - while George Kirby roared to life in a super-quality, near-complete outing. When Jose A. Ferrer worked through a light jam to complete the game in the ninth, Seattle walked away with a 6-2 win and the seeds of a new outlook on the season.
George Kirby gutted out an eight-inning start, moving to fourth all-MLB in innings pitched.
Coming off three straight quality starts, Kirby had been on something of a hot streak going into Monday’s game. But due to a lack of offense on the other side in these starts, Kirby had lost two of these three outings. The Mariners’ hitters woke up on the other side on Monday, giving him a win, but Kirby put in one of his best outings all year as he found legions of grounders from free-swinging Angels bats.
Things didn’t start off super well, however, as Kirby leaked a heater over the middle of the plate to Halos leadoff guy Zach Neto for a double. Denzer Guzman quickly chopped a ball off Josh Naylor’s glove and the visitors had a run on the board.
The Halos didn’t follow up on that run as Nolan Schanuel grounded into a double play two pitches later, the second of 12 ground balls from Angels bats. What could have been a crooked first inning had Kirby let his guard down became a meager single run for the visitors. After the game, the M’s hurler talked about his attitude in those situations and the way he needs to approach things when the game begins to go against him.
Four Runs Still Out of Reach as Mariners Fall 4-3 to Guardians
The Seattle Mariners continue to eye franchise history - for the wrong reasons - as they tied the team record with 13 games in a row while scoring three or fewer runs in a 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday. Holding onto a half-game lead in the middling American League West, the Mariners need to decide if they want to build on last year's success or drift sheepishly back into mediocrity.
Even the most optimistic Seattle fans know the phrase “Same old Mariners.” It encompasses the feelings of a downtrodden fanbase that has only made the playoffs six times in their 50 years of existence. Despite having the greatest season in team history last year by reaching Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, most fans are already ready to chalk it up as a fluke given their team’s struggles this year.
The roster is not devoid of talent; quite the opposite actually. FanGraphs Playoff Odds still gives the M’s an 80.3% chance of making the postseason. The lineup still needs to wake up though, as this roster has shown that it cannot sleepwalk its way to winning the division.
The trade deadline is approaching. Changes need to be made. What can this SoDo squad do to get back on track?
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.
Mariners No-Hit Through 6, Late Comeback Comes Up Short in 6-2 Loss to Red Sox
Coming off a gratifying shutout victory against the Baltimore Orioles, the momentum slowed down for the Seattle Mariners on Friday night. Facing an underperforming Red Sox team limping into the Emerald City, Seattle looked primed to rattle off a win streak against a Boston squad fresh off suffering a sweep by the Toronto Blue Jays.
Boston had other plans however, capitalizing on poor pitching decisions, an inability to hit lefties, and a lack of bench depth, as the Sox punished the M’s mistakes at every turn to open the series with a 6-2 win at T-Mobile Park.
Julio Rodriguez homered in the ninth inning to drive in two runs, but it proved far too little, too late. Outside of the centerfielder’s blast, the Mariners had little to celebrate on Juneteenth as they donned their popular Steelhead jerseys, paying homage to the Negro League team that predates the M’s.
What went wrong in the Mariners’ latest defeat?
Bryan Woo Burns Through Baltimore Lineup, Mariners Win Series
The Mariners scored three runs in each of their games against the Baltimore Orioles as they began a two-series homestand against a pair of East Coast teams, a tally of runs that is seldom enough for consistent victory. And yet thanks to some incredible pitching - from Logan Gilbert on Tuesday and from Bryan Woo on Thursday - they won two of their three games and took their first series against the Orioles since 2022.
Seattle is now two games above .500, 39-37, after playing a series without Randy Arozarena or Luke Raley and having missed Josh Naylor for two games and Julio Rodríguez for one. In spite of all their hardships over the past couple of weeks, they have kept their heads barely above water as the days of June tick forward and the halfway point inches closer.
Bryan Woo struck back on Thursday, pitching seven scoreless innings with nine strikeouts.
This year, Woo hasn’t benefited from the incredible consistency of his 2025 campaign, coming into the game with a 4.28 ERA thanks to a newfound tendency to give up scores of hits with runners in scoring position. With a 1.037 WHIP, 3.25 FIP, and 5.27 strikeout-to-walk ratio, this ERA pace marks a significant outlier. Still, it takes a certain amount of mental fortitude to keep tough innings from becoming disasters, and Woo had given up five or more earned runs in a start four times out of his most recent nine outings. Interspersed among those games were four quality starts and one “Felix quality start” of seven innings, no earned runs, and nine strikeouts.
That seven-inning outing was repeated in style on Thursday as Woo did all three of those things once more. His ERA dipped back down to 3.94 as he mowed down the Orioles inning after inning, catching them off-guard with fastballs well above the zone and using an effective two-strike mix of heaters and breaking balls. A greater unpredictability in his pitch mix was the thing Woo cited as his main adjustment.
Pereda, Mariners Clobber Mets 8-3; Win Streak Extends to Eight
It’s not clear exactly which Mariner defined the team’s resounding 8-3 victory on Tuesday night. Perhaps it was catcher Jhonny Pereda, whose putaway homer represented a recovery from the canonical worst experience for a catcher to have. Or maybe it was Colt Emerson, who increased his OPS to .935 with a pair of hits and who finished off the game with a sweet sliding catch. A case could be made for Patrick Wisdom, who logged his first Mariners home run and got the hitting party started way back in the second.
All three of those, it might be noted, began 2026 with the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers.
But regardless of whoever may be first among equals, the Mariners had a steadily stiffening hold on the game from start to finish. Even when the visiting Mets tied it up in the third, Seattle kept the pressure going against bulk hurler Jonah Tong and New York soon cracked. And the M’s finally logged a string of three straight series wins.
“Boy, if I had the magic touch, we’d keep it forever,” Wilson said of his team’s eight-game win streak. “Sometimes that’s just the game, and we’ve talked about how offense is contagious, and it just feels like the energy offensively has been outstanding … we’ve seen just how exciting it can be when it gets that way.”
Patrick Wisdom knocked his first Mariners homer to put Seattle up 2-0 early.
Coming into Tuesday’s game, the Mariners had hit a grand total of 18 home runs in their previous seven contests, a pace of 2.57 homers per game. That isn’t going to be sustainable over the long term; the highest figure a team has ever posted was a tie between the 2023 Atlanta Braves and 2019 Minnesota Twins at 1.90 home runs per game. But it was a marked upturn from Seattle’s 1.11 home runs per game figure, and after Tuesday, the M’s have hit 1.31 home runs per game in all of 2026.
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