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.
“We Can’t Get Satisfied With One Win”: Mariners Fall Below .500, Below First Place with Cuyahoga Collapse
Mariners manager Dan Wilson didn’t appear to treat Sunday’s game like a must-win contest. This was despite the fact that the team’s AL West lead had all but evaporated and that the game directly determined a tiebreaker between the M’s and Cleveland Guardians, one that could in turn be the difference between the Mariners getting a first round bye or not. The guidelines of long-term player management were all but catechisms for Wilson even as his team’s 4-1 lead fell into the dust.
“Our guys, they want the ball, and we'll give them the ball when we can, and when they want it, and some guys are available for one-pluses and some aren't, and we make adjustments as we go,” Wilson said after his team’s 6-5 loss. “And that's just where we're at right now.”
There was no willingness on Wilson’s part to stretch anyone beyond their usual usage. No reliever up-downs would be allowed and no starter could surpass 100 pitches; in short, there would be no second wind for his team. By the time such second winds are allowed in September, it may be too late, just as it was in 2024 (and before Wilson’s tenure, in 2023, too). Such is the peril and just dessert of treating the first five months of the season like extended Spring Training.
They fell out of first place, under .500, dropped the series and the season series, and yet again let an opening win go unfulfilled in the final two games as they took their foot off the gas.
The Mariners, injury-conscious given the circumstances, committed to reliance on Michael Rucker and Josh Simpson.
Starter Emerson Hancock worked into the sixth inning, but with 98 pitches and a heap of armside misses to Cooper Ingle with two outs, Wilson went to the bullpen and called upon Eduard Bazardo. It took a bit for him to settle in, as he gave up a double, but his punchout of Patrick Bailey sealed the deal for that frame.
A series of left-handers made for the Mariners to go to Gabe Speier in the seventh, and though he worked around a pair of two-out hits to punch in another clean frame, his usage marked the last quality arm before closer Andrés Muñoz. Jose A. Ferrer had pitched in both previous games, and with his 39 season appearances, perhaps the two-on, one-off guideline was the best one to treat like a catechism
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.
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.
Mariners Forget Fundamentals, Drop Saturday Game 8-3 to Nationals
It seems the Mariners are yet to escape their consistent inconsistency. After having beaten the Washington Nationals 10-2 the previous day, with every starting Mariner position player getting a knock, the team lost 8-2 as the pitching slipped up and the offense took a big step back outside of the ever-impressive Colt Emerson.
But the biggest issue for the team was the defense, which was docked for three errors and looked quite shaky even outside of those official events on the scoresheet. The game served as an example of bad fundamental play across the board and a reason why the team has a losing record in one-run games and just one win after trailing in the seventh. They still have the luxury of playing in the division that they do, but they aren’t forming good habits for the playoffs and the lack of precision has turned what should be a lock in the weakest division in baseball into a 1 ½ game lead over a mediocre Athletics team.
Defensive miscues piled up early, and a would-be clean first became a three-spot for the Nats.
Josh Naylor didn’t have himself a very good game on Saturday, with big misses with the glove and stick. The former came first, with a bad throw in the bottom of the first allowing the Nationals to put together a two-out rally and tack three runs on Luis Castillo.
Hand Injury Sidelines Crawford as Mariners Drop Detroit Opener
The ultimate meaning of Friday’s game in the Motor City will depend quite a bit on the health of J.P. Crawford: if he is out for a significant stretch of time (or if his abilities get all out of goose should he try to play through something serious), then an errant - it may have been Framber Valdez, but it certainly seemed to have been an accident in this case - full count sinker may end up being more pivotal than an otherwise unremarkable 7-3 loss would indicate. Should the Mariners recover to put some more wins back together and Crawford recover back to the way he had been playing, then the game might truly become a footnote.
Of course, if a veritable skid begins for the Mariners, with or without Crawford, then the momentum of Friday’s action may end up important for much larger reasons.
The M’s went back to familiar ways with runners in scoring position, with runs drying up in Detroit.
Friday was Valdez’ 20th career appearance and 18th start against the Seattle Mariners, during which he had gone 7-4 with a 3.50 ERA and 1.320 WHIP. The M’s, of course, were codivisional with Valdez during his eight years with the Astros, but the team he faced on Friday was one that had spent most of the year flailing against lefties.
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.
M’s Take Close, Stable Pitcher’s Duel to Begin Road Trip in Kansas City
The Mariners have seen games take wild courses in Kauffman Stadium over the past few years, but on Friday night, it was remarkably stable. Both teams struggled quite a bit at the plate, leading to a low-scoring pitcher’s duel, but one home run for the visitors led to Seattle taking a 2-0 lead and the M’s bullpen went all according to plan.
Logan Gilbert threw nearly six shutout innings, recovering from his seven-run disaster against the Padres.
The last time Logan Gilbert had gone out to the mound, he had thrown 21 of his 27 first pitches for strikes, yet the San Diego Padres jumped on them for seven runs in total. Gilbert threw 15 of 21 first pitches for strikes on Friday, yet he kept the opposing Royals scoreless.
Talking with the media before the game, manager Dan Wilson downplayed concerns that the Mariners’ strike-throwing had allowed hitters to sit on and ambush early strikes.
“We do attack the zone, we do want to get ahead, and I think it’s a different at-bat when you do,” Wilson said before Friday’s game. “I think the good always outweighs the bad when it comes to that.”
Of course, the devil is in the details. Looking at a map of these first pitches, with those against San Diego on the left and those against Kansas City on the right, there are a couple things that are clear.
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.
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.
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.
Jacks Full of Threes: Raley Clubs Seven RBIs, M’s Bash White Sox 12-8
Things go a lot more easily for a baseball team when they hit three home runs to score three or more men each. Good offense over nine innings can more than smooth out a bad inning on the other side, though the Mariners’ 12-8 win on Friday night against the White Sox took a while to get to the coasting stage.
In a sense, it wasn’t nearly as close as the score said; most of the high-end relievers were able to rest as Chicago scored three runs in the final two innings to turn a giant lead into a respectable one.
But in another sense (it was a one-run game until the seventh), the game was closer than its final score. M’s starter Emerson Hancock slipped quite a bit in the third inning and gave up five runs on the night, but recovered enough to go six innings and preserve the bullpen. Seattle’s first chance with the bases loaded didn’t produce anything else, but they broke the gates later on.
The big hero of the night was the still-mashing Luke Raley, who upped his season line to .258/.314/.567 with eight homers and 23 RBIs.
Luke Raley began the barrage with the first grand slam of his career.
The Mariners gave White Sox starter Sean Burke a couple of easy innings on Friday, falling in seven pitches in the first and 11 in the fourth. But crucially, they also put tons of traffic on the bags in the second and third, and though the second was underwhelming, things came together in the following frame.
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.
Two Electric Homers Give Mariners Comeback Win against White-Hot Braves
Home runs are thrown, not hit. That is an adage that holds up among the best and most consistent hitters in the game, who take what is given to them and do the most they can with it, whether that means lining one the other way or launching it in the air. When a hitter tries to force a home run on a pitch that won’t allow it, there are a whole lot of outcomes like strikeouts and rolled-over grounders that end up much worse for the hitter.
Paradoxically, this also means that home runs are determined by the hitter. Pitchers who allow fly balls will allow home runs, but it’s up to the hitter to put that swing on it when it comes.
A lot of hitters tried to hit homers on Monday night in Seattle as the Braves took on the Mariners, the visitors white-hot and the home crew struggling. While nobody could get it done with the bases loaded, six hits left the yard: four for Atlanta and two for Seattle, but the M’s got theirs with men on base and won 5-4.
Logan Gilbert got through six innings by the skin of his teeth, with three solo shots coming in the last frame.
Gilbert’s efficiency issues over the past two seasons are well documented. After throwing a combined 3.8 pitches per plate appearance from 2022 through 2024, Gilbert threw 5.2 per plate appearance from May 2025 through the end of 2025. Batters’ adjusted to his style of pitching, laying off the splitter thanks to the predictability of its usage, but they still had issues squaring up the pitches, jacking up his pitch counts thanks to tons of foul balls and good takes.
Young Slugs RBI Double, Slaps Two-Run Single in Mariners’ Comeback Win over Twins
A .500 batting average and a .500 on-base percentage. 16 total bases in 22 at-bats. A 1.227 OPS. One home run, two doubles, and eight RBIs.
Those were Cole Young’s hitting stats over the Mariners’ 5-1 road trip to get back to .500 baseball by the end of April. Three of those RBIs came in the Mariners’ 5-3 win in their rubber match against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday and two were as timely as could be with the M’s down one in the top of the ninth.
What goes up must go down, but the second baseman’s offensive breakout has been the Mariners’ best friend more than once in the young season on plenty of different-color diamonds.
George Kirby kept the Twins to two runs despite a big fourth inning opportunity.
Just like Logan Gilbert on Tuesday, George Kirby didn’t get the defense behind him that he wanted, with uneasy outfield play extending a fourth inning that saw the Twins put a pair of runs on the board and ballooned his pitch count enough to end up nixing the quality start and adding some workload for the Mariners bullpen.
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.
Still-Sleepy Mariners Suffer Sixth Loss in Eight Games, Lose Series to Athletics
SEATTLE, Wash. - The M’s didn’t look much worse on Tuesday night than they had all year. The problem was that they didn’t look any better, either.
All they have shown in the first 25 games of the season has been mediocrity, inconsistency, and a gradually weakening confidence in their own abilities. The team hasn’t fallen fully off the table, but as the drudgery continues seemingly indefinitely, the phrase “right now” will become an ever more faded addendum to the phrase “this team is bad.”
Because let’s be realistic: the M’s can’t bank on a 10-plus game win streak to propel them out of the herd every year at the last moment; at some point, they need to learn how to start the regular season strong and not let up. Lifeless 5-2 losses to a sneakily threatening divisional rival can only happen so often for a team with World Series aspirations.
Luis Castillo threw a decent outing, but a high pitch count and loss of secondary control late forced him out early.
For an organization used to unearned no-decisions, Luis Castillo’s five innings of two run ball was about the platonic ideal of a no-decision.
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