Mariners Cement Losing Season, Drop Another Game to Angels
When Cole Young rolled one over weakly to second for a game-ending double play on Tuesday, a grim reality that had been all but assured for weeks became official: the 2026 Mariners are a losing team.
Seattle’s 2-1 loss to the Angels dropped the team to a 70-82 record with 10 games left to play. The playoff picture, which became even uglier as the Astros and Rangers both won, is now hardly worth thinking about.
Tuesday’s step into the abyss, like all 81 before them, had a little bit of symbolism. Dan Wilson, surrounded by smoke that he will step down when this year is done, took out one of the team’s top prospects in favor of their half-measure rental.
As any individual game goes, however, Tuesday’s was unremarkable. Logan Gilbert pitched well but got saddled with a loss because the offense died down aside from one run. The team squandered its chances with runners in scoring position. From the 10-foot view, it isn’t meaningfully different from the other losses; in the story of how the M’s went from one to 82, it is only valuable as a milestone.
The 10,000-foot view shows us that this was part of an inexorable pattern. The M’s would often chalk up such games to bad luck, but now there is no ignoring even for Wilson: it wasn’t bad luck.
“We were just waiting for it to turn around, and it never quite did,” Gilbert said. “It’s on us. At the end of the day, that’s the reality of it. We need to be accountable and know that we have to execute better. Things have to change. We have to have those conversations and figure it out.”
Mariners Finally Take Singular Series from Rangers in 2026
At least the Mariners can play spoiler.
That is hardly where anyone on the team wanted them to end up when the season began. But the autopsy of the year - where three guys the Szymborski Projection System (ZiPS) had putting up a combined 15.2 FanGraphs wins above replacement (fWAR) only accrued 4.9 fWAR with 15 contests left in the season - is already written in the oft-surprised and oft-sullen faces of those in T-Mobile Park’s home dugout.
Going into their series against the Texas Rangers, the M’s had already squandered their last chance to jump back into the fray with a somewhat robust series loss to the Athletics over their previous four games. Things had already been dire for Seattle since at least the end of July if not earlier, but that set of games was the moment that the players on the team fully realized they had to stare down the music.
Perhaps there was a new attitude that arose a few hours, give or take, after rookie Lazaro Montes sent a Cal Quantrill meat and cheese sub to Saturn on Tuesday. If the M’s can’t make the playoffs for themselves, perhaps they can use one of their last remaining series against a contender to ruin someone else’s day.
Kade Anderson and Logan Gilbert went 13 combined innings with four runs allowed total.
Both the least experienced and most experienced starting pitchers did what the team needed of them on Wednesday and Thursday. That in and of itself was a departure from the muddy record of M’s hurlers since the All-Star Break, when the staff has suffered one of the worst stretches in recent memory up and down its roster. Before Anderson’s first career win on Wednesday, Seattle starters had logged a 4.99 ERA and 5.04 FIP in the second half, and the youngest had struggled with a 5.40 ERA and 5.63 FIP in his first three starts.
Mariners Playoff Hopes All But Finished After Dropping First Two to A’s
Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Friday saw the Mariners place one more stone on their own immurement, falling to 66-76 and seven games back of the division. In truth, they had long sealed themselves off from any reasonable chance of wriggling themselves out of their predicament, but they had still been in the twilight of the possible as they returned home from a series win against the Red Sox and began their first of four games against the Athletics.
Losing the first two games of that series should put any remaining embers of hope to bed. The long odds of late August have become near-impossible ones with only a few days gone in September, as the team must make up a seven-game deficit with 20 contests left to go.
The word Mariners manager Dan Wilson used after Friday’s 7-6 defeat wasn’t “tough”; it was “difficult” as he began his immediate recap postgame and “frustrating” as he concluded it. But the sentiment was identical, seemingly homologous to the great gray mass of clouds over T-Mobile Park as summer turns to autumn. Such has been the season in 2026.
Not to mention the fact that Lazaro Montes left the game early.
Logan Gilbert gave up five runs on four homers in the third as his heaters went south.
Big Dumper Returns: Cal Raleigh’s Three Homers Power Mariners Past Phillies
With both teams sending their top starters to the mound, a low-scoring game was expected between the Seattle Mariners and Philadelphia Phillies on Monday night. A pitching duel it was not, however, as the Mariners bludgeoned Zach Wheeler and the playoff-bound Phillies by a score of 9-2.
The M’s offense got hot early and stayed hot, scoring five runs in the first inning to give their starter Logan Gilbert quite the cushion. Cal Raleigh finally found his stroke, blasting three home runs and working a walk as well.
Gilbert continued his Cy Young-worthy campaign by battling through five innings, and Seattle’s bullpen put up zeros the rest of the day to put Philadelphia on ice.
The team is being resilient and finding a way to win, as their superstar catcher noted.
“We’ve endured a lot this year,” Raleigh said afterward. “We are fighting with everything we’ve got right now.”
Mariners Survive Brewers, Gain Ground in Wild Card Race
Seattle came limping into Milwaukee after getting pummeled 22-0 the night before, looking to exorcise some demons against the Brewers on Wednesday night. Facing former top prospect Dustin May, the Mariners got the bats going early, plating four runs in the first inning before ultimately winning 7-5.
Current Cy Young candidate Logan Gilbert, emboldened by an early lead, battled through five innings before being pulled in the sixth. Likely two batters too late.
As has been the case all season, Dan Wilson made another questionable decision that nearly cost his team the game. But his players persevered, allowing Seattle to gain considerable ground in the wild-card race.
Did Seattle have a great offensive performance? Absolutely. Were they simultaneously incredibly lucky? Unequivocally. That’s a luxury not often enjoyed by this team as it tries to turn its season around.
“We Know Where We Are At”: Lone M’s Win in Bronx Shows Blueprint Despite Not Being Enough by Itself
Over the past seven games, the Mariners have found themselves outscored 34-11. It was 34-10 going into Thursday’s afternoon contest in the Bronx; the team rode a stellar six-inning, seven-punchout, no-run start from Logan Gilbert to break an ugly six-game losing streak. The spell, starting in Seattle against the Tigers, had seen them finally stop treading water - because they had sunk like a stone. Were it not for some unexpected production on Wednesday (ultimately in vain as the pitching gave up 10 runs that day), the team’s scoring would have been better described not in runs per game but games per run, Anthony Bennett style.
When things go this pear-shaped for a baseball team, a lot of fingers get pointed and plenty of blame gets cast. The Mariners are 57-65, having barely avoided two straight sweeps to the two top teams in the AL; there’s certainly have plenty of blame to go around. No one is hitting, the team’s hurlers aren’t putting up quality starts, and even when they have a lead, their bullpen blows up and another ugly L goes up on the calendar. Perhaps the finger can go at skipper Dan Wilson, or president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, or the hitting crew of Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer, or to strength and conditioning, or a player development side that can’t seem to turn good players into great ones, or an analytics department that seems to follow more than it leads, or owner John Stanton. Or maybe everybody, or maybe nobody.
The players blame people far more familiar: themselves. For a team that constantly talks about the importance of belief, the bluntness of their self-doubt is a bullhorn.
“It starts with me. I’m awful,” Cal Raleigh noted after their Tuesday 4-1 loss to open the series in New York. Over the course of the 2026 season, Raleigh has a .159/.267/.297 slash line, good for a worse batting average and OPS+ than all but one of Dave Valle’s Mariners seasons. Raleigh hadn’t been scheduled to speak to media that day, he simply held an impromptu presser where he called himself horrid in every possible way. Can you blame him for feeling like that?
Winning 1-0 on a Thursday Weston Wilson homer won’t meaningfully change things by itself; the M’s have seen too many would-be turnarounds go belly-up to believe that one win means the job is finished. That was true when they were a pair of games over .500, that was true when they were a pair of games under. 500, and it’s still true now that they’re seven games underwater.
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.
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.
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.
Mariners Searching for Answers After 6-1 Loss to Rays Extends Florida Losing Streak to Five Games
Enduring a horrifying road trip to the Sunshine State, the Seattle Mariners continue to frustrate their fan base as they fell flat again in their 6-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday. Poor luck, situational hitting, and an abnormal dud from ace Logan Gilbert made for a lackluster performance at Tropicana Field.
Gilbert allowed nine hits and two walks, but in his defense, he exited the game having only given up two runs to that point. He did leave runners on first and second as reliever Gabe Spier proceeded to give up a three-run blast on the first pitch he threw. That promptly put the game well out of reach for a Mariners team that has been struggling offensively as of late.
Continuing a season-long trend, Seattle had no issues with reaching base. They put 10 batters on, but their issues arose getting them home once again. The Mariners went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position (RISP) Saturday, bringing their five-game road trip total to a shocking 2-for-38 (.053).
Once a division favorite, the Mariners now sit two games back in the AL West at 47-49. No matter the outcome of the series finale on Sunday, they will enter the All-Star break below .500, an astonishing outcome considering their expectations heading into the year.
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.
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?
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 Right Road-Trip Wrongs, Start Homestand With Gritty 3-1 vs. Orioles
Back in tandem for the first time in nearly a month, Logan Gilbert dazzled and Cal Raleigh stole the show as the Seattle Mariners sidestepped a recent myriad of injuries to start off their latest homestand on the right foot, earning a late 3-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles at T-Mobile Park on Tuesday night.
The Mariners returned home for a six-game set still on the wrong side of the injury report. Three lineup mainstays were unavailable, even with Raleigh and J.P. Crawford returning, putting more pressure on Dan Wilson’s stars to show up. And boy did they ever.
Happily firing darts to Raleigh in his first game off the injured list, Gilbert tossed seven innings of one-run ball while striking out a season-high 10 batters. Making an immediate impact with his bat after a long rehab stint in Everett and Tacoma, Raleigh came through in the clutch, scorching a go-ahead RBI single that plated the winning two runs in the seventh inning.
What stood out in Tuesday’s series-opening win?
Mariners’ Tuesday Bombshells: Rotating Piggyback, Pereda Sent Down, Arozarena to IL
Tuesday ended in a solid 3-1 win for the Mariners at home against the Orioles, but a flurry of roster moves and decisions may have been even more hectic for the team than that night’s action. The team called Cal Raleigh back up to the MLB roster, announced a first-of-its-kind rotating piggyback, and had to call up a guy who had taken four total plate appearances above High-A ball in his entire career thanks to a seemingly bizarre lack of preparation on Randy Arozarena’s injury status.
Mariners general manager Justin Hollander, speaking with media Tuesday afternoon, noted the inordinate severity of the injury situation as compared to other bugs he had dealt with in his tenure with the team; he noted that Luke Raley and Josh Naylor were both dealing with issues and that Matt Brash, Carlos Vargas, and Cooper Criswell would be out until around the trade deadline. Brendan Donovan is set to start running work in the week, but these persistent injuries are not a good sign. This is especially true of Raley’s lower back tightness, given that similar injuries ended up shattering his 2025 season well after he was officially healed.
The mechanistic plan to have each of Seattle’s six starting pitchers rotate the piggyback amongst themselves is many things, but to use a judgmentally neutral term, it is unprecedented. It is also seemingly contradictory that the same organization that came up with a plan as intricate as a rotating piggyback also waited until a gameday to MRI Arozarena despite having a rest day to do so; had they done the simple thing of scheduling an earlier MRI, they would have been able to call Connor Joe back up as is clearly their long-term plan.
But what’s done is done, as bizarre as the events were. What should be made of these decisions, and what do they mean for the near future of the Mariners’ season?
‘Just When You Think You’ve Seen it All’: Blissful Mariners Take 6-5 Thriller in Baltimore
“This game’s put years on my life,” said Mariners catcher Mitch Garver after the team’s 6-5, 10-inning victory.
The 35-year-old catcher seemingly left it ambiguous as to whether “this game” referred to the night’s win (one more claustrophobic than a closed-up cave) or whether he meant baseball itself, but in any case, Tuesday’s might be the unlikeliest win the M’s have scratched across yet.
Where Víctor Robles and Jose A. Ferrer failed the Mariners on Tuesday night, Ryan Bliss and Nick Davila saved them. Where Mitch Garver’s lack of a challenge in the bottom of the first led to an Orioles run, his A-plus showing over the remaining nine innings allowed his team to take the win.
The victory required incredible plays from Patrick Wisdom and from a somewhat out-of-position Cole Young. It required the weakest arms in the Mariners bullpen to log two clean combined innings and give some rest for their weary companions. Perhaps most of all, it required grinding, gutsy, going-all-out play from a guy who had played in two MLB games in the previous 365 days.
And it required a man on barely four hours of sleep to make the biggest, most stressful pitches of his life. Isolating the only hero from the course of Tuesday’s game would be a task harder than those that befell both Davila and Bliss. But these tasks were not only reserved for the final innings.
Logan Gilbert put together an unlikely quality start despite being at 58 pitches through two.
Despite a 3.79 ERA going into Tuesday’s game, M’s starter Logan Gilbert has had his share of five-and-dive outings with batters fouling off good pitches and laying off tough filth. Much of it had been due to predictable sequencing, though that issue has been less apparent in May than it was in March and parts of April. The O’s stretched him thin over the first two innings, and with all of four available relievers in the bullpen, there wasn’t much room for inefficiency.
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.
M’s Complete 22-4 Sweep of A’s with 9-1 Blowout, Take First Place in AL West
Despite still being a game back of .500, the Mariners are in first place in the AL West. In one sense, it doesn’t matter; a man once said that you should check the standings once on June 1 and every day starting July 1. But in another sense, the series was massive.
“Yeah, I think so,” said Mariners starter Logan Gilbert when asked if the series (in which they outscored their opponents by 18 runs) was their most complete of the season. “To go out there and prove it like that, and everybody steppin’ up at different times, it says a lot about the team.”
For the first time since sweeping the Astros at home back in April, the M’s cobbled together three consecutive complete wins. From the first inning onward on Wednesday afternoon, Seattle held a watertight lid on a team that had come into the series scoring 4.8 runs per game in their home ballpark. Julio Rodríguez put a bow on the whole thing with a three-run jack in the eighth, but the final outcome was not in doubt long before the 9-1 final score.
Rob Refsnyder got the Mariners started with a three-run homer, continuing an inchoate upturn.
The Mariners’ $6.25 million acquisition of platoon bat Rob Refsnyder hasn’t been a very productive signing despite the clear pedigree of production against lefties over his previous four seasons. With a horrific .113/.195/.197 slash line going into Wednesday’s game, it appeared that his time with the Mariners was nearing an ignominious conclusion.
That may yet be true. But a glimmer of hope shone through in the first inning, as he built on a hit in Tuesday’s game with a loud 107.7 mile per hour bomb.
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.
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