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.
Crawford, Rodríguez Log Firsts; Mariners Walk Off Diamondbacks
Friday night began as a game of firsts and ended as such, even if, for a few frames, an uneasy familiarity washed over T-Mobile park.
The Mariners had to scrape, scratch, and battle just to get back to an even .500 record, 29-29. But a win is a win is a win, and the team’s 7-6 extra innings victory was just the same as if it had been the easy ordeal it initially appeared. For five innings, home runs from historic places were putting players in great positions and George Kirby was apparently grooving.
In truth, Kirby was missing danger by the thinnest of margins, and once that tiny bit of tricksy pixie dust dissipated, Arizona’s high-contact bats and eagle eye for the strike zone made Seattle pitchers fight for every blade of grass. One after another fell before the onslaught, conducting an ordered retreat by the skin of their teeth until the tide turned at a most unlikely Mariner with the proverbial morningstar upon his brow.
Homering Mariners set their own records as Seattle powered out to an early lead.
As befits this Mariners team as much as those of other years, all runs scored in regulation innings came on the longball. But these homers - at least those powered before the game became a nailbiter - set personal records for multiple guys on the team. In the end, all three M’s leading the team in homers added to their edge on Friday.
Arozarena, Mariners Gut Out Series Win vs. White Sox
It would be quite an understatement to say a Wednesday win was badly needed after the gut-punch the Mariners had suffered on Tuesday.
Luckily for Seattle (with luck indeed on the team’s side more often than not), the M’s gutted out the afternoon rubber match, defying even a no-outs, bases loaded miss to put up five runs and win the game 5-4. It was their first one-run win since May 4 and 24th win on the whole year, though they still sit three games under despite heroics from Randy Arozarena and Jhonny Pereda.
Emerson Hancock pitched an uneasy five innings but avoided extra damage.
Wednesday’s game gave Mariners starter Emerson Hancock the chance for revenge on the only team to yet put up a crooked number on him in 2026. Results were mixed innings-wise, but the hurler kept the White Sox to far less runs than the five he had given up in Chicago.
The strangeness of the sport was on display in the second and third innings for the Mariners starter. Despite a whistle-clean first inning, Hancock lost his control in the second, unable to figure out the release point on his fastball. One heater after another flew high and away to the lefty Colson Montgomery for a leadoff five-pitch walk, followed by four straight up and in to Chase Meidroth. He tried to get his feel back with a sweeper to Jarred Kelenic, only for it to bounce out of Jhonny Pereda’s reach and advance the runners - but the wild pitch scarcely mattered since Kelenic walked anyway.
Bullpen Locks Down Four Frames, Mariners Eke Out 3-1 Win in Houston
It was power on power in the bottom of the ninth. Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz, who had reached 101.3 miles an hour two pitches earlier, had a 2-2 count against Yordan Alvarez himself. Alvarez represented the tying run, and with 13 home runs already this season, he was a real threat to knot the game.
Muñoz tossed his rarest pitch, a 93.2 mile an hour changeup that tailed away from Alvarez. Expecting either a roaring fastball up or a slider along the lower edges, he was completely flummoxed; the Mariners won 3-1 as Alvarez struck out.
For a team desperately in need of a hot streak, getting any win on the board against Houston was a plus. George Kirby didn’t go as deep into the game as the M’s would have hoped and the bats fell silent for nearly the entire game, but they got just enough production while Kirby and every other arm stepped up enough run-prevention wise to notch Seattle’s 20th victory.
Mariners hitters put three early runs on the board but fell familiarly silent as the game wore on.
The second inning was fruitful for Seattle. Randy Arozarena knocked a one-out single into right and Luke Raley walked to set a two-runner table, and with two outs, both Dominic Canzone and Cole Young found the outfield for an RBI each. Julio Rodríguez rocked a towering homer to begin the third.
And then 20 of the next 23 batters made outs.
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.
Rodríguez, Naylor, Young Hack Timely Hits as Mariners Mash Minnesota Late
Here’s a stat: Julio Rodríguez has more triple doubles in the city of Minneapolis than Nikola Jokić does in the calendar year 2026.
Well, adding a three-double baseball game into the widely accepted hoops definition of “triple double” allows that to be true. It’s also a testament to the defensive skill of one Rudy Gobert, who has finally and resoundingly managed to convince the world that he is actually good at basketball.
As far as Rodríguez is concerned, his three doubles - the baseball version - set a couple of tables for Seattle and cleared their last, and the center fielder accounted for two runs scored and two others knocked in during the Mariners’ 7-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins.
It wasn’t just Rodríguez, as Josh Naylor and Cole Young offered some timely hits of their own while starter Logan Gilbert wriggled himself out of enough pickles and jams to make some truly unique culinary concoctions, even while only going five innings. The M’s, after all their tribulations to start the season, are a game behind .500.
Logan Gilbert showed a bit of adjustment but still had to Houdini his way out of a five-inning start.
It is often said that pitchers are crazy. Usually, this refers to intensity or the way the staff interacts with the rest of the players, and it is most stereotypically associated with the isolated (and thus mysterious) bullpen.
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 Should Learn Two Lessons from Monday Loss to Athletics - But Will They?
The old adage goes as follows: you win a third of your games, you lose a third of your games, and it’s the third in the middle that counts. So it goes for baseball teams and aspiring politicians alike.
Monday’s game was squarely one of those middle games, but the reasons the Mariners lost 6-4 can be sorted into two camps: roster construction and roster usage. The M’s went 1-12 with runners in scoring position, but this is something the team basically just has to weather for the rest of the year when it shows up.
But as for the use case of Casey Legumina and when to take out the left-handed member of a platoon? The M’s and manager Dan Wilson got a couple pieces of useful information on Monday night.
That information, however, only goes so far as the Mariners will take it. But first, a little on the initial five and a half frames.
Bats Go from Quiet to Silent, Mariners Drop Third Straight to Open Texas Series
Sometimes, when a good team is in a rut of bad performance, it only takes one good break to open the floodgates and turn things around.
But when the M’s put up eight against the Guardians, or walked off the Yankees, or stole a theretofore scoreless match in extras from the Angels - or when Cal Raleigh launched one halfway into the upper deck on Monday night in Arlington, Texas - it was less like the great floodgates opening and releasing an overpowering torrent and more like little droplets of water gathering on the collection surface of a solar desalination plant: the tiny pellet of hydration was followed by yet more aridity.
Cal Raleigh finally found his stroke in his first at-bat of the game, torching a middle-middle Jacob DeGrom fastball 418 feet to right field.
What’s that old saying about the darkest time of the night? Well, the sun only shone for one at-bat in the top of the first and then quickly went away again (what’s the inverse of an eclipse?), but at least Cal Raleigh got himself into the .500s in OPS (talk about scarce droplets of water!) by the end of the night.
Sluggish Mariners Start Hitting Late, Drop Series to Yankees
Things won’t usually go well when you are scoreless for 16 straight innings and score one run in the span of 23 innings. Seattle dealt with quite a lot of those stretches in 2025, and even with a bolstered offense for the new year, it looks like that issue won’t go away, even if it’s the heart of the lineup in the doghouse this time.
Seattle made it interesting in the late innings, but too many mistakes on all sides of the ball gave Cole Young, one of the M’s riding a hot streak, the unfortunate task of being the final out.
George Kirby deals through five but gets some dear punishment from Paul Goldschmidt after walking two in the sixth.
If “Furious George” had forgotten how much he hates walks before Wednesday’s action, his second start of the season surely reminded him. All three batters Kirby walked came around to score, starting in the first inning as Cody Bellinger walked and stole second before Ben Rice scorched a double down the right field line for New York’s first run.
Hancock Stuns in First 2026 Outing, Mariners Thump Guardians 8-0
It all seemed to come together on Sunday afternoon. Unlike the first or third game of the series, where the Mariners kept it close but fell in the end thanks to some bullpen mismanagement, defensive miscues, and lethargic hitting - and unlike the second game, where two timely homers brought them to victory - there wasn’t a single moment of the fourth game between Seattle and the Cleveland Guardians where it seemed the pressure was on for the home crew.
Hitters up and down the lineup did their duty, the defense looked good, and that whole tone was set when a once-touted prospect whose bad luck had eaten his star finally seemed to turn a corner.
Hancock impresses in first 2026 start, tossing six no-hit innings and setting a career high in strikeouts.
Mariners starter Emerson Hancock came into 2026 with one more chance to become a major league starter. The former first-round draft pick has pitched to a 4.81 ERA, 5.23 fielding independent pitching (FIP), 1.359 walks and hits per innings pitched (WHIP), and a 2.06 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He had particularly struggled with control even more than walks as such, with errant pitches forcing him to groove a strike or two and get punished in bad situations.
Old Mariners Bugbears Continue Biting in Opening Day Loss to Guardians
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s hard to say there wasn’t an air of that feeling in T-Mobile Park after the Mariners dropped their Opening Day contest 6-4 thanks to some shoddy relief work, unimpressive defense, and one-trick offense.
Four solo home runs were all the production the M’s could muster, and in a lot of games against the Cleveland Guardians, that might be enough (they scored slightly less than four runs per game last year). But Logan Gilbert once again struggled to go deep, outfielders lacked urgency on fly balls with men on base, and Gabe Speier caught the bad end of some J-Ram magic with men on base.
But for all the lingering of long-lamented woes, the newest guy on the roster burst his way onto the scene in a big way.
Brendan Donovan made the best first impression possible as the M’s new leadoff man.
The Mariners franchise is entering its 50th season this year, having notched its first game in the books all the way back on April 6, 1977. In all that time, no leadoff Mariner had hit a home run in his first at-bat of Opening Day. Not Dave Collins all the way back in that first season nor Harold Reynolds in the late ‘80s nor Ichiro in his Hall-of-Fame Mariners career. Of the 49 season-inaugural batters, not one had left the yard in that first at-bat.
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
Assessing Three March Mariner Concerns Ahead of 2026 Regular Season
If the Seattle Mariners started the 2026 regular season 6-16-1 (ignore the tie), things would probably be nearing panic mode in T-Mobile Park. But given that it’s Spring Training, the record isn’t all that concerning as Opening Day begins. But from injury concerns to slow starts for stars, there are some points of worry for the M’s as the season comes into view. Just how worrying are these signs, however? Is there any meaning to be derived from them?
Concern 1: Injury questions for players up and down the roster.
Concern level: 4/10
The most-discussed injury question for the upcoming season has been Bryce Miller, and it seems likely by this point that he won’t be ready to start the regular season. The Mariners have Emerson Hancock and Cooper Criswell both available to fill in the fifth starter role - and I personally expect they’ll start with Hancock, with Criswell in the tank if Hancock again struggles as a starter - but they at least have some good indications due to both players’ performance in Spring Training. That doesn’t necessarily mean much for the regular season, especially in the top-line stats such as ERA and FIP, but the M’s have to be impressed with Hancock’s feel for the ball.
Baseball’s Back: Five Notes from Mariners’ First Spring Training Action of 2026
With blue skies above and many excited fans all around in that picturesque Cactus League ballpark, the Seattle Mariners played their first game of 2026 Spring Training on Friday, Feb. 20. The first day of spring is perhaps the most hopeful time for all 30 teams in any given year, with a nearly clean slate injury-wise and the first harsh reality checks of the regular season still a month and change away.
A quite packed house of 9,956 spectators dotted the Peoria Sports Complex to see the Mariners and Padres both take to their home Spring ball yard. They saw prospects go up against powerhouses in exciting duels and yet also witnessed players trip over each other, lose cans of corn in the sun, and make Little League errors in base coverage. No one got hurt and the game doesn’t count, so both sides came away with a smile in a 7-4 win for Seattle. But what does the first preseason action of 2026 tell us about how things might go when real chips are down for the Mariners?
Michael Arroyo put on a good display at the dish, with a homer and double to power early Seattle production.
Seattle’s system has a fair amount of top-end hitting prospects, and although Colt Emerson and Lazaro Montes headline the system, the crown in Peoria bore witness to another of Seattle’s guys in the farm system. Michael Arroyo, who struggled a bit with his power after his promotion to Double-A in 2025 with a .255/.376/.341 slash line (though this was still a 121 OPS+ where 100 is league average) - and yet decreased his strikeout rate against better pitchers - went into Spring with the chance to show what exactly the Mariners have with him.
Newly-Added Cooper Criswell Leads Pack of Mariners Arm Development Projects, But Several More Dot System
The Mariners added another reliever to the pile on Friday, but Cooper Criswell is just one of quite a few arms with a range between organizational depth and dark horse hero. What does Seattle see in these offseason pickups?
ALL SEATTLE SPORTS, ALL THE TIME
Explore our latest Seattle sports content by clicking on your favorite team(s) below!
