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.
Emerson’s biggest struggle at the plate in his rookie season has been chasing high fastballs. Like his OPS, he managed this issue well in his first 15 games in the Show, only swinging at 22.9% of such pitches. But starting on June 3, he began chasing them incessantly, with a 48.4% swing rate at fastballs above the zone.
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="413"]
Colt Emerson’s swing rate at fastballs in the red-outlined zone took a big jump a little after two weeks into his rookie year. [/caption]
“We talk a lot about not chasing up there a lot, and that's something that I thought Rasmussen did a pretty good job of tonight,” Wilson said. “Often times, there's non-competitive misses up there, but I felt like he was around that top rail, and that makes it difficult to make a decision on.”
Rasmussen pitched Emerson one fastball at the top rail and two more eight inches above it, striking him out on three pitches. Though the last two pitches that Emerson swung at were the highest strikes anyone threw all game, he certainly wasn’t the only Mariner to miss the mark against the Rays hurler.
“I thought he had decent stuff tonight,” Wilson said about Rasmussen. “It looked like he was moving his fastball around and had good command of it, used his cutter when he got behind. And like I said, we were making some contact, but not solid contact, and again, we just didn't convert the traffic when we had it, and that's difficult in a game like this. We tried to get back into it but just weren't able to.”
Each of Rasmussen’s three fastballs was effective on Friday, but after Seattle’s missed chance in the second, the hosts went all but absent at the plate, going without a baserunner from the third through the seventh inning. Rasmussen ended his seven-inning, no-run outing with eight strikeouts and two walks, with Seattle having gone 16 straight innings without a run.
Despite this, Wilson felt that they had the baserunners to get things done.
“Again, we’ve talked about it, and we do get traffic,” Wilson said. “We’re able to get some guys on and the next step is getting that big hit. Right now we haven’t been able to find it, but we gotta find it, and we gotta find it quick.”
Logan Gilbert delivered a quality start that kept the M’s in the game.
After having begun the year with 11 starts of a 4.04 ERA and 4.19 FIP - though with a 1.107 WHIP - Gilbert started figuring things out, mixing up his sequencing and accruing a 2.94 ERA, 2.73 FIP, and 0.882 WHIP over his following 11 outings. He had thrown 4.01 pitches per plate appearance (and 16.2 pitches per inning) in his first 11 games and 3.91 pitches per plate appearance (15.03 per inning) in his next 11, regaining some of the efficiency that he had lost in 2025.
Cal Raleigh called all sorts of stuff in the first, but it quickly became clear that Gilbert had better control of his fastball and slider than anything else. The splitter wasn’t fooling anyone on the Rays, while the changeup and sweeper didn’t find competitive spots. Tampa’s more aggressive approach led to some quick innings for Gilbert, but there were two mistakes he made that the visitors exploited.
The first of these mistakes came in the second inning with a 1-0 count to Jonny DeLuca, as Gilbert plated one down the middle that DeLuca sent over the center field wall. Jonathan Aranda ambushed a first-pitch slider in the third to make it 2-0 on the Rays’ second solo homer of the game, but after that, Gilbert didn’t give up any runs.
Tampa threatened in the fifth as Victor Mesa Jr. doubled to lead off and Richie Palacios bunted him to third, but Taylor Walls’ attempted safety squeeze went right to Cal Raleigh, who tagged Mesa for the second out of the frame. Home plate umpire Doug Eddings helped the M’s out, calling Mesa out of the baseline and seemingly missing that Raleigh tagged him with an empty glove (the ball was in his right hand), but the play kept the Rays off the board and got the second out. The frame ended when Gilbert picked Walls off at first, with Naylor applying a quick tag.
The bunt play, though clearly telegraphed, was still a threat that Gilbert and the Mariners had to deal with.
“Yeah, it just kind of worked out there, and Cal made a great play,” Gilbert said. “I think you want to give them different looks … we went changeup and finished with a slider there, and I think those are usually tougher pitches to put a good bunt down. So try to keep them guessing a little bit.”
Gilbert nearly logged a seven-inning start for the sixth time this year, but with two outs in the seventh, he lost control of everything. Though he has some of the best talent in the M’s rotation, he’s not a quick adjuster, and after eight straight balls, Wilson took him out of the game. He finished the day with a quality start, 6 ⅔ innings pitched with two earned runs, six strikeouts, and four walks.
Despite a late homer, the M’s lost once more, going into the 50-year celebration on a tense note.
Eduard Bazardo got the final out of the seventh while Jose A. Ferrer worked the eighth. A potentially shakier situation began to play out in the top of the ninth, as Seranthony Domínguez gave up a soft single to Mesa and walked Palacios with one out. Domínguez struck out Walls, however, and when he got Yandy Díaz to fly one harmlessly to right, the ball was in the batters’ court once again.
Brendan Donovan had already gotten a would-be rally started in the eighth as he reached base on a hit by pitch, but although Emerson knocked a single to bring Donovan into scoring position, no one else managed a hit and the M’s remained scoreless.
Arozarena and Dominic Canzone both struck out, Arozarena on a called strike three. The boos were already audible, though not overpowering, as Rodríguez walked up to the plate.
For a brief moment, the disappointment and anger broke apart near-totally in T-Mobile Park. Celebrations and fireworks erupted simultaneously as the seemingly impossible had happened: the Mariners scored a run!
Naylor struck out and that moment drifted away into the wind. Rodríguez’ OPS crossed above .750 for the first time since June 12, but his 18th home run of the year came with nobody on and it seldom mattered as the Mariners suffered their 61st loss of the season.
With the first contest of an 18-game gauntlet lost and the crowd offering very audible boos, Wilson was asked after the game what he thought of the fan reaction. He sidestepped the intended question, instead focusing on the cheers he expects when the M’s somehow turn it around.
Here's Dan Wilson on the booing inside T-Mobile Park after the Mariners lost 2-1 to the Rays.
» https://t.co/2VLyCfNqJv pic.twitter.com/HwsnntviB9— 93.3 KJR (@933KJR) August 8, 2026
