Crawford Completes Comeback with Walk-Off Single, Mariners Best Astros 8-7
“J.P.! J.P.! J.P.!” rang out the chorus of 43,294 happy, exhausted spectators on Saturday night. Perhaps some of the Central Washington students among them (who had a special discount for the game and got some CWU-themed jerseys) were planning on continuing the night on Lower Queen Anne or Capitol Hill; the older and wiser CWU alums in the crowd were probably set to take their modes of transportation home so as to get some shuteye. All of them shared in the electricity of the evening’s end.
Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford hadn’t been part of much of the first two weeks of the season for Seattle, nursing a shoulder injury sustained in Spring Training, and the first five games of his season saw him hit a paltry .118 over 26 plate appearances.
“I was going crazy not being able to play,” Crawford told Mariners TV’s Ryan Rowland-Smith after the game.
The Mariners shortstop had put together a 1-3 game with two walks during Seattle’s skid-breaking win on Friday, hitting leadoff with Brendan Donovan out of the lineup with an illness. But Saturday night saw him punch through a pair of massive bases-loaded singles to bookend the team’s biggest comeback of the young year.
Randy Arozarena’s Mammoth Fifth Inning Homer Reverses Hitting Woes, M’s Beat Stros 9-6
The look on Andrés Muñoz’ face told it all as Leo Rivas stepped on third to complete the final out: exhaustion and catharsis.
It was a feeling that reverberated around Mariners country as the team won its first game and nearly a week, put more than two runs on the board for the first time in a few days, and had a solid defensive showing after scores of innings full of botched glovework.
The Astros’ struggling pitching and the Mariners’ struggling offense both showed early on Friday.
Ichiro’s statue unveiling outside T-Mobile Park on Friday night encountered an unusual mishap: the bat cracked and bent at the handle as the tarp was taken off to unveil it.
It was the proverbial picture that said a thousand words about the Mariners offense. Over the first 13 games, the Mariners had failed to score before extras in four of them. The whole batting crew had looked about as lost as three Roman legions in the Teutoberg Forest.
Analysis: What Does Underlying Data Say about Mariners’ Hitting Abyss?
There have been a lot of bad results with the bat in the first 13 games the Mariners have played in 2026, and for every bad result, there are 1,000 ways to quantify and describe it: worst in the league in average (.184), on-base percentage (.280), and slugging percentage (.301). The league’s second-lowest hard-hit rate (34.2%) and highest whiff rate (32.9%). Bat speed declines for Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, Josh Naylor, and others.
But with 149 games left to go, how much of this is actually meaningful and predictive? How much of it is pure noise?
The top lines are too early to tell right now; any answers will come from underlying data.
There isn’t much that can be told from the first 13 games as to which disappointing slash stats are because a good player is in a slump and which are because the player is plain overmatched. Both Aaron Judge and Willi Castro entered Friday with a .222 batting average, but it’s safe to say that their career OPSes of 1.025 and .696, respectively, are good indicators of who is more likely to get hot.
Mariners Waste Lucky Breaks that Angels Take, Drop Series with 8-7 Loss in Extras
There’s always a strange air around games between the Angels and Mariners. Any divisional rivalry series will have an edge to it, but for the Halos and M’s, it just feels a bit different.
It probably has something to do with this: the modern Perry Minasian Angels are a mirror of the Jack Zduriencik-era Mariners: both teams stuck in the doldrums of mediocrity, wasting the career of two generational players (one Japanese superstar each), but each doing it in the opposite way.
Where the 2010s M’s caromed between 95-loss disasters and missing the playoffs by a game or two, the 2020s Angels hover around 70-75 wins year-in and year-out. The Zduriencik Mariners failed to shore up generational pitcher Felix Hernández, while the Minasian Angels have left future Hall of Fame center fielder Mike Trout out to dry. Ichiro was the first Japanese position player to light up the MLB (doing so with an old-school Wee Willie Keeler-style approach), but was nearing the last few years of his career by the time Zduriencik sent him to the Yankees. Shohei Ohtani, a much more homer-focused modern great (who, by the way, can also pitch) was a few years into his pro career before going to Anaheim.
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.
Mariners Give Big Goose Egg against Fried, Continue Defensive Woes
As might be expected for a team 3-3 out of the gate early in the season, the Mariners’ supposed new-look offense has looked a lot more like a lateral shift. Perhaps it’s the cold weather, perhaps it’s lack of adjustment to the batter’s eye, perhaps it’s lack of momentum for key stars who played in the World Baseball classic - but this is a ball yard that has seen a whole lot of “slow starts that will even out” turn out to be the tone set for the entire year.
And when teams like the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Astros clearly have all their ducks in a row on the first weekend, putting up a goose egg at home against one of the league’s best teams isn’t the best of signs.
Gilbert’s splitter looks limited in his outing against New York, but a better middle-inning pitch mix offers a way forward.
Despite being Seattle’s opening day starter, it doesn’t quite look like Logan Gilbert has yet reached the ace potential billing he has long come with. The first inning didn’t look good for his efficiency slump, with the hurler trying and failing to fool the Yankee hitters with buried curves and splitters on his way to 28 pitches and two runs in the frame.
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.
Mariners Turn Three Hits into Five Runs, Tie Opening Guardians Series
The Seattle Mariners still haven’t hit a single through the first two games of the season. That didn’t matter on Friday night.
Cleveland Guardians starter Gavin Williams may have spun good enough stuff to punch out seven Mariners, but he also walked six, and timely round-trippers from Cole Young and Luke Raley put the M’s far ahead of the visitors and brought the team to its first win of the year.
“Furious George” deals with early homer and puts together a quality start to begin his 2026.
Chase DeLauter’s prospect stock is about as high as can be right now. After mashing two home runs in his regular season debut on Opening Day, day two hurler George Kirby became the third Mariner to foolishly leave a pitch on the lower inside part of the plate, exactly where the 24-year-old rookie likes it.
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
10 Over/Under Predictions for the Seattle Mariners in 2026
The Seattle Mariners are set to begin one of the most anticipated seasons in franchise history. After getting closer to the World Series than ever before, Seattle has some serious momentum heading in 2026.
With that, let’s set the table for the 2026 MLB season with 10 Mariners-themed “over/under” scenarios and dive into whether or not the M’s will hit the over.
Mariners Repeat or Astros Return; Who is AL West’s Deadliest Warrior? Analyzing Division as 2026 Season Approaches
Ever since the Mariners’ dramatic September sweep on Houston’s home ground that all but sealed the division, 2026 has shaped up to be a close rematch between the two teams. Which team, if any, has the edge going into the season?
How Will Randy Arozarena Fit into Mariners’ 2026 Plans?
Hot and cold is more than a Recession-era hit song, it’s also a modus operandi for many around MLB. Randy Arozarena hit the slump side of things after early August and didn’t have a playoff explosion in 2025, but what can the Mariners expect for 2026?
Three Errors, Three Double Plays, Third Jays Win: Mariners Drop Game 6 in Toronto
The Mariners had a chance to punch a ticket to the World Series in Game 6 of the ALCS, but due to a whole host of preventable mistakes, they will face elimination for the second time this season. How did Seattle drop the ball on Sunday night?
Geno Breaks Out Rye Bread and Mustard in Game 5 Thriller; M’s One Win Away from Fall Classic
With their backs to the wall for what seemed like the 100th time in 2025, the Seattle Mariners came up big in a Game 5 for the history books. How did the M’s rise again from the grave on Friday afternoon?
Rapid Reaction: Blue Jays Obliterate Mariners in Ugly 14-3 Game 3 Rout
It all went wrong for the Mariners on Wednesday night, with the Blue Jays putting up a baker’s dozen runs in a blowout in front of T-Mobile Park’s home fans. Why did Toronto’s bats wake up in Game 3, and what made the M’s response so lackluster?
Rapid Reaction: Mariners Stuff Blue Jays 10-3 in Statement Win on Canadian Thanksgiving
Despite some early uncertainty, the Mariners delivered a statement Game 2 win in Rogers Centre, tapping a variety of heroes as they return home with a big advantage for Game 3.
Rapid Reaction: M’s Arms Excel Again; Raleigh, Polanco Produce Enough for 3-1 ALCS Game 1 Win
Few expected that a Blue Jays team coming off an offensive firestorm would be all but shut down, but that’s what Bryce Miller and the Mariners did on Sunday night’s opener. How did Seattle strike ahead in Game 1?
Rapid Reaction: Polanco’s Walk-Off Single Propels Mariners Past Tigers in 15-Inning Thriller to Clinch ALCS Berth
In a near five-hour baseball extravaganza with over 500 pitches thrown and 15 pitchers used, the Mariners advanced to the ALCS for the first time since 2001 with a 3-2 win over the Detroit Tigers in 15 innings thanks to a walkoff single by Jorge Polanco.
Rapid Reaction: Tigers Kick Miller, Maul Mariner Bullpen; M’s Forced to Game 5 against Skubal
Seattle couldn’t get it done on Wednesday, dropping the chance to put the Tigers to bed in their own ballpark as Detroit forced Game 5 in Seattle. What made the tables turn so quickly in the back half of Game 4?
Rapid Reaction: M’s Cage Tigers 8-4 in Game 3 of ALDS, Lead Series 2-1
It wasn’t a pitching duel like Games 1 and 2, but things fell into place for the Mariners in Game 3 while Tigers manager A. J. Hinch’s best laid plans went awry.
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