Mariners Drop Saturday Spring Game 10-5; Hancock Appears Solid in Start
PEORIA, Ariz. - The beating Arizona sun took quite its share of victims for the second day in a row as the San Francisco Giants made the trip over from Scottsdale to Peoria for some Cactus League action against the Seattle Mariners. Chief among those victims this time was Emerson Hancock’s Spring Training ERA as the M’s let a five-run lead become a five-run loss.
But since the score doesn’t matter in February, let’s take a look at some of the few things that might give us the faintest echo of an idea for how the Mariners look going into 2026.
Emerson Hancock shows some life in his first outing of the spring.
Seattle’s pitching lab has seen a lot of success in recent years, with Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby turning into key pieces of the Mariners’ arsenal. But so far, that success has not been flowing in Emerson Hancock’s direction. Hancock, who has a career 4.81 ERA, 5.23 FIP, and 1.359 WHIP across 37 appearances (31 starts), enters 2026 with one more shot to become a major league starter.
His issues off the rubber have been many - with control problems and home run bugbears - but there’s clearly still something in the tank. With a sidearm angle, Hancock has a lot of side-to-side movement with three main pitches, a four-seamer and sinker that both run hard to the armside and a sweeper that twirls like a frisbee away from the right-handed hitter.
Hancock seemed to put a fair amount of it together on Saturday afternoon despite some issues, striking out four while walking one batter and hitting another and giving up three earned runs (though they all scored against his successor Peyton Alford). His sinker averaged 95.9 miles an hour and his four-seamer 95.7 miles an hour, both around one mile per hour faster than his 2025 averages on those pitches, and threw them both for strikes more than half the time. His sinker was more of an early-count workhorse whereas Hancock used his four-seam as a top-of-the-zone out-pitch to great effect, getting a whiff on seven of nine Giants swings.
The sweeper was a little wilder, producing quite a few balls, but Hancock was able to mix it with his fastballs to catch his opponents off-guard. But although the first inning went quite well, the second inning produced some issues. Hancock hit the first man up and recovered to blow down the next two on strikes, but after Daniel Susac cracked a single and Hancock missed outside time and again to walk Eric Haase on five pitches, Mariners manager Dan Wilson pulled Hancock from the mound with the bases loaded and two outs.
For what it’s worth, despite all three of those runners coming around to score, the inning only continued thanks to Cole Young losing a pop-up in the Arizona sun.
Although Hancock looked quite solid at points, he will need to follow his performance up with a few more to build some more team confidence.
Cole Young picks up where he left off in 2025, in both the positives and the negatives.
Going into the 2025 season as the Mariners’ top prospect, Cole Young had a serviceable big league season but one that the M’s will need to see improvement on going into his sophomore campaign. His .211/.302/.305 slash line amounted to a measly 78 OPS+ (where 100 is league average), but Young had one hopeful stat in a 10.9% walk rate.
That figure reflected Young’s strong eye and patience at the plate. Oftentimes his issue would be an issue getting the bat to the ball when he needed to, with good pitches to hit ending up rolled over to the right side or flown out the other way. But when it came to laying off junk or even close balls, Young held his own.
Víctor Robles led off the bottom of the first with a base knock to the left side, giving Young a man on with nobody out for his first time up. A battle ensued between him and Giants starter Hayden Birdsong, who danced around the zone as balls and strikes piled up for a full count, and Young watched the eighth pitch fly by for ball four.
Another battle ensued in the bottom of the second between Young and a Giant, this time Blade Tidwell, and it once again reached a 3-2 count as Young laid off pitches up and down while fouling off good stuff on the edges. Once again, his enemy hurler tossed one towards the edge of the zone, but Young watched it go a couple inches below the zone for a ball.
It’s hard to complain about getting on base two times out of three, but Young’s patience did end up shading the other way in the bottom of the fourth. For the third time in the ballgame, Young got a full count, but instead of resulting from a precise battle, it came from a failure to get to a hitter’s pitch. Michael Fulmer, on the mound for San Francisco, fell behind Young 3-1 and hung a cutter right down the chute - but Young completely whiffed on it. Fulmer’s next offering went into the zone without contest for strike three.
It’s very early in Spring, but the M’s will want to see more bat-to-ball skills from Young as the season approaches. Still, it’s good to see his patience continue into the new year.
Miles Mastrobuoni delivers a truckload of unexpected power in Arizona.
The Cactus League is a place where unusual things happen, and a lot of these happenings don’t carry over at all to the 162 games that go in the record books. While the Mariners would love it if Miles Mastrobuoni of all people became a breakout power hitter, his two career homers in 447 plate appearances very much suggest otherwise.
And yet a sample size of two games and four plate appearances can do wonders. Friday saw Mastrobuoni crack a 402-foot double, but he saved his best for Saturday. With Young, Patrick Wisdom, and Andrew Knizner on the bases, Mastrobuoni saw a heater right over the middle of the zone and put a big swing on it for a grand slam.
Those four runs were the last of the game for Seattle, as the Mariners’ 5-0 lead became a 10-5 defeat after all nine innings were done, but Mastrobuoni’s day wasn’t over. He lined one into shallow left center in the third inning and worked a hustle double out of it to complete his 2-for-2 day and cement a 2.000 slugging percentage through two games.
That’s certainly not an accurate preview for his 2026 season, but production is production.
Top-end relievers make first Cactus League appearances and Colt Emerson helps one out with a heads-up play at third.
Another good reminder that anything can happen in Spring Training is the performance of the Mariners’ top relievers: Andrés Muñoz, Gabe Speier, and Eduard Bazardo. First off, they appeared in the third through fifth innings, something I’m willing to bet will not happen once April begins.
Muñoz came into the ballgame with one run remaining of the lead that Mastrobuoni ballooned two innings earlier, but his third inning “save” went off the rails from the jump as his first-pitch middle-middle fastball to Heliot Ramos wound up walloped for a leadoff double. Muñoz worked ahead of Bryce Eldridge 1-2 and spun a flaming 98.3 miles an hour an inch above the strike zone - and yet Eldridge cracked it for a double of his own. He settled down after a lineout to third, however, dotting the zone perfectly for two strikeouts.
Speier’s fourth inning came through like his 2025 performance never left, dotting the edges of the zone with confidence for a one-two-three frame. Interestingly, Speier never threw his slider during the inning, making do with just his four-seamer and sinker.
A trouble spot arose in the fifth for Bazardo, who walked Christian Koss on seven pitches and hit Ramos before a buried slider ate up Brian O’Keefe behind the dish to move the runners up. Unlike Muñoz, Bazardo seemed to have some issue getting into his groove, and Jerar Encarnación drove a hot shot to third.
Colt Emerson came up with the ball quickly and immediately sent it to O’Keefe at the plate. Koss, going on contact, barreled for the dish, but the throw was quick and on target to keep the game tied. Emerson didn’t make any noise on the other side with the stick on Saturday, striking out in both his at-bats after falling behind some early strikes, but his quick play on the hot corner made for his first Seattle highlight of the year. Seattle sure hopes that the tenor of his rookie year will align more with that than with his two quiet strikeouts.
