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# Mariners Playoff Hopes All But Finished After Dropping First Two to A’s
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seattle-mariners-seven-games-back-lazaro-montes-leaves/
- Published: 2026-09-05T08:24:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:10:28.000Z
- Author: Callaghan Bluechel
- Tags: News, Analysis, Mariners, Lazaro Montes, Logan Gilbert, Dan Wilson, Cal Raleigh, Brock Rodden, Julio Rodriguez, Taylor Ward, Andres Munoz, Cole Young

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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.

It looked like Gilbert was spinning his stuff with extra fire in the first and second innings, as he logged four strikeouts on 25 total pitches. The four-seamer was playing up in the zone with incredible speed, and by and large, that was enough to get the A’s to drop like flies.

But Gilbert never got a handle on his slider - and wasn’t throwing his splitter, changeup, cutter, or sweeper - and once his heater lost a little bit of zip and fell from the top of the zone to the bottom of the zone, the visitors were all over him. Max Muncy took a first pitch heater out over the left field wall to lead off the frame, Alika Williams homered to tie the game, and after a walk from Henry Bolte, back-to-back jacks from Jeff McNeil and Zack Gelof gave the Athletics a 5-2 lead.

The hurler had been missing plenty of pitches in the lower part of the plate on his arm side, a tendency that gave the Athletics’ right-handers easy pickings as they cracked one hit after another.

“Often times, that down and in area is an area you wanna stay away from,” Wilson said, “and it looked like a couple pitches ended up in that sweet spot, kind of in the loop zone, and they were able to take advantage of it.”

Strikeouts kept coming in the fourth and fifth, but though Gilbert got two outs in that inning, a walk early on came around to score as Gelof launched a triple to the right center field gap. Despite being on 93 pitches by that point and clearly struggling, Wilson left Gilbert in the game to face Lawrence Butler, who whacked the ball into right field for the Athletics’ seventh run of the game.

Gilbert grasped for answers after the game, at points oscillating between attributing the seven-run dud to especially canny Athletics hitters and at other times blaming himself for the onslaught. When asked if the A’s had picked up on a tip, the starter showed a certain ambivalence, though emphasized that it wasn’t his main focus at that point.

“Maybe. I don’t think it was, but maybe. So, we’ll see,” Gilbert said. “Just make some adjustments that we need to make and execute pitches when we need to, I think that’s the main thing.”

In the end, Gilbert chose all, or most, of the above. 

“It was a combination of bad pitches and mistakes, and also a couple of decent pitches that they were just hitting,” Gilbert summed up. “…there'll be games like that, but just got to do a better job making an adjustment, trying to minimize.”

### Lazaro Montes left early with “hip soreness” after a wall collision.

Losses in an already lost season are one thing, but more injuries to the pile - not even the first for a rookie - leave a far queasier feeling. Although the Cuban right fielder’s call-up was probably at least justifiable (though arguable) on [readiness grounds](https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/home/seattle-mariners-lazaro-montes-debut-early-timely), it was already risky to add him to the 40-man with so serious a chance of the impending lockout lasting deep into 2027, and it would be all the more gut-wrenching if Montes doesn’t even get to have that much playing time.

That Gelof triple in the fifth barely went past Montes’ outstretched glove in the gap. Had the right fielder been a couple games more comfortable with the wall in T-Mobile Park, he may have found it easier to sprint to the high fly ball off the rip and then slow down to collect himself at the fence. But stuck in between an unfamiliarity with the ballpark and an intense urge to compete, his dart towards the gap started off slow and picked up speed as he raced laterally across the warning track. That left little room to brace for impact as he tried to make the catch regardless.

Montes went down with a grimace and the ball bounced off the wall, into his glove, and then out of his glove. After a long conversation with Wilson and trainer Kyle Torgerson, the rookie stayed in the field.

That, however, was temporary. Once Gilbert was pulled later in the frame, Montes’ discomfort continued apace and Taylor Ward went out to fill his spot. According to Wilson, he had felt it more than expected after charging the ball in the outfield, and the team decided to exercise caution at that point.

X-rays were reportedly negative, though Wilson stated his expectation that Montes would “likely be pretty sore tomorrow”, so it appears unlikely he makes an appearance on Saturday.

### The offense started out well but wasn’t able to finish the job when they could.

To Seattle’s credit, they went to town on Kade Morris. The Athletics’ rookie starter came into the game with a 9.82 ERA, 6.91 FIP, and 2.114 WHIP, and while he is the A’s no. 11 ranked prospect according to Baseball America, he has still needed time to adjust to the majors in his first few big league outings (which have mostly come in relief).

Cal Raleigh walked to begin the second and, after getting to second on a Josh Naylor grounder, he came around to score when Cole Young lined a hit into right. Young extended that hit into a double with a little elbow grease, a decision that proved worthwhile when J.P. Crawford shot one through the right field hole to put the M’s up 2-0.

Even with the five-run third that the Athletics churned out on the back of all their big flies, the M’s found enough offense to knot the score once again in the bottom half of that inning. Brock Rodden, in his first of two knocks on the night, began the frame with a single, and after Randy Arozarena got grazed by a pitch and Rodden advanced to third on a medium depth fly ball from Dominic Canzone, he found his way home on a groundout by Julio Rodríguez and Seattle had the tying run at the plate in Raleigh.

If nothing else, it seems that the long-beleaguered catcher is having a hot streak; Raleigh walloped a game-tying shot over one of the deepest walls in the ball yard.

Yet once Brady Basso replaced Morris, the M’s let the foot off the gas. The Athletics have one of the worst bullpens in the majors, but the likes of Basso and Geoff Hartlieb kept them off the board just as the Athletics regained their lead against Gilbert. Seattle’s bullpen managed to keep it from getting any worse for the Mariners on the other end, but the bats were running out of chances as the game deepened.

Raleigh once again tried to put the team on his back, coming around to score after a one-out double in the eighth, but as Ward fell short with two outs and two men on later in that frame, the cosmos curled away its chances. Andrés Muñoz gave his all in the top half, but with no run production in the last of the ninth, the M’s fell short for the 76th time in 2026.

### On deck

Even if the Mariners were to sweep the Astros in their final two matchups of the season, they would still need to make up five games in 18 remaining. It may be true that most of Seattle’s remaining games come against the not-so-vaunted not-so-powerhouses of the A’s, Angels, and Rockies, but as the last two games have proven, there is little value in an advantageous strength of schedule if they can’t actually get the job done against these bad teams.

Assuming the Astros keep their current 83-win pace, the Mariners would need to go 17-3 to match them in the standings and defend their tattered division title. This team hasn’t proven anything close to that kind of mettle all year - why would it change now?