> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Kade Anderson Gets Mariners Stay of Execution, but M’s Add to Injury Pile - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-mariners-kade-anderson-stay-of-execution-andres-munoz-hurt/ - Published: 2026-09-21T05:39:33.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T06:10:15.000Z - Author: Callaghan Bluechel - Tags: News, Game Day, Analysis, Mariners, Kade Anderson, Andres Munoz, Dominic Canzone, Seranthony Dominguez, Dan Wilson, Randy Arozarena [Embed from Getty Images](https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/2295780266?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) Had the season gone according to plan, the Mariners’ 2-0 win on Sunday against the Rockies would have been utterly unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, another notch in the belt of a team running away with the division. As things stood in the real 2026, the middle third of that sentence was true. But things did not go according to plan; the belt was about 15 to 20 proverbial notches shy of where the M’s expected to be by the end of the penultimate week of the season. All that the win did, in the greater sense, was stay the Mariners’ execution by a couple of days. In the nearer view, the game had a high note in Kade Anderson’s seven shutout innings and a low in Andrés Muñoz’ early injury-related exit. Muñoz has dealt with right knee issues in the past, and he reached down to that area after multiple pitches in the bottom of the ninth as he fought for the save. He is going to receive imaging when the M’s return to Seattle on Monday. As for the day’s high note, the performance on the mound for the first seven innings was a sound distraction from the general melancholy of their experience this year. “I thought Kade (Anderson) buried his off-speed stuff down very, very well, and they took advantage of that team being aggressive, and he got a lot of quick outs which allowed him to get deep,” said skipper Dan Wilson. “I just thought the whole game plan from beginning to end, and the way Kade executed it, was phenomenal.” ### Kade Anderson excelled for seven scoreless innings, earning his second MLB win. The first few big league starts for Anderson have been something of a rocky road for the No. 3 pick of the 2025 MLB draft. Despite clearly having the building blocks - killer secondaries, lots of strikes, a spotless minor league resume - to be a lockdown starter, he had a 5.33 ERA, 4.44 FIP, and 1.421 WHIP over his first five outings with the Mariners. Anderson’s first postgame pressers had thus been a mix of the glimpses of good play and the reasons for bad play. He had talked at times about control, other times about confidence; on Sunday, what he talked about was leaving the zone on two-strike counts. It’s obviously a balance for any pitcher. Logan Gilbert, for example, had issues for much of 2025 and 2026 due to not throwing *enough* strikes in pitcher’s counts. But for Anderson, he realized he needed to use his plus stuff to get misses out of the zone, and with first-pitch strikes to 18 of 25 batters, he had the opportunities to do so on Sunday. “I did a better job of executing today,” Anderson said after the game. “And I put myself in situations to where I can lean on throwing balls out of the zone and hopefully they swing, that type of thing.” Anderson tossed a career-high seven strikeouts and tied his career low of zero walks, with three coming on the slider, two on the fastball, and two on the curveball. Anderson’s fastball in particular was better located at the top rail of the strike zone, which is what he needs in order to overcome his unremarkable four-seam velocity. But Anderson’s performance also came from his ability to mix his slider, curveball, and changeup almost perfectly evenly as his secondaries, with a 39% whiff rate on those pitches during the game and a 38% called strike plus whiff rate (CSW). The Rockies didn’t manage to threaten Anderson much during Sunday’s contest, but they did get runners on the corners with two outs in the third and a one-out triple in the sixth. Anderson got some help from Brock Rodden at third in the first jam, but he took it himself the second time Colorado got a man in scoring position; Connor Norby fell looking at a 1-2 slider and the righty Hunter Goodman flailed at an 0-2 slider at his feet. Were Anderson a more experienced pitcher, he likely would have gone out for the eighth, as he was only on 84 pitches through seven. But as 2026 is his first professional season and he is on a pitch count limit, the M’s took him out of the game with seven frames under his belt. The start dropped Anderson’s ERA to 4.18 and his FIP to 3.72\. Two of his last three outings have now been quality starts, though the clunker in Anaheim in between is still the worst mark of his young career. Still, there is no way other than forward for the young lefty, and Sunday was a good indication for his future. ### Dominic Canzone provided the entirety of the Mariners offense. Seattle only scored two runs on Sunday, and though they were enough thanks to the efforts of Anderson, the M’s didn’t have the best day at the plate. The Mariners actually had fewer total hits than the Rockies did, though they had the benefit of a pair of clutch Dominic Canzone hits to drive runners home. The first of these was in the fourth with one out and Randy Arozarena on first: Arozarena took off on a 1-1 pitch and Canzone whacked it into center field for a hit, and as Cole Carrigg in center took his time to get to the ball, Arozarena steamed around third past a stop sign and dove onto the dish for Seattle’s first run. Canzone’s second RBI was a much more common one, as he doubled in J.P. Crawford from first with a shot into the right field corner. The right fielder’s OPS increased to .818 with his 2-for-4 performance, the second-highest qualified total on the Mariners. ### Seattle nearly dropped it in the ninth, but Eduard Bazardo got an emergency save to stave off elimination. After Seranthony Domínguez spun a quick eighth, Muñoz went out for the ninth to try and get the 29th save of the season. But although he got the first out on one pitch and got Goodman to two strikes, his fifth fastball of the at-bat was a little slower and right in the Rockies catcher’s wheelhouse. Goodman whacked a solo homer to bring Colorado within one, but more worrying for Seattle was that Muñoz appeared to reach down to his leg upon completing that delivery. Despite his velocity returning to triple digits for most of the following plate appearance, Muñoz walked TJ Rumfield to bring the winning run to the plate. Once again, the final pitch was a notably slower heater followed by Muñoz holding his right leg. Wilson and head athletic trainer Kyle Torgerson went out to the hill, and after a fairly long conversation, walked off with Muñoz to the dugout. Eduard Bazardo, whose last attempt at a save had ended in gut-wrenching disaster, walked out to the mound for the emergency save. Bazardo stayed above the top rail for much of the time against Carrigg or Adael Amador, fanning the former and walking the latter, but the danger finally dissipated as he got Brett Sullivan to miss a sweeper on the bottom rung. ### On deck: in all likelihood, official elimination will come at the worst time in the calendar. The M’s may indeed have kept themselves technically alive with their win on Sunday; though the White Sox won their game and took Seattle out of the wild card race, a Rangers loss meant that - as long as the Mariners win all six remaining games and Texas loses all six of their remaining games while the Astros win no more than twice - Seattle still has a mathematical chance. But keeping a forlorn hope alive cannot be the focus of their two-game series against the Astros on Tuesday and Wednesday. The only thing they can still feasibly do is take Houston down into the abyss with them, as sweeping their final meeting would sink the Astros to 77-81 and all but guarantee that team misses the postseason. Playing spoiler may perhaps be enough to distract them from a mathematical elimination that will almost certainly come during their series against Houston. Then again, that might be the most fitting final note to 2026.