“Still Growing, Still Learning”: Mariners’ Josh Naylor Discusses Upcoming ALDS Against Tigers
SEATTLE, Wash. — It’s hard to capture Josh Naylor in one word. He is intense and intimidating, yet calculated and nonchalant. His eyes seem to convey three things at once; the only thing they are not is blank. It is as if he is able to bend light when someone meets his gaze, inducing fear in pitchers when he is at the plate yet making them all but forget his presence once he reaches first base—and that’s his plan. It seems clear that he would shine in the World Series, both of baseball and of poker.
That’s despite shoulder pain that has been nagging at him for months. Despite 2025 being one of the best seasons of his career, there were stretches of the season where each swing was followed by a grimace. It seemed that another nick worsened his situation in the antepenultimate game of the season, and so he sat out the final two days. He got game-like action before the ALDS, though, as he took part in two intra-squad scrimmages on Wednesday and Thursday. The shoulder pain, it seemed, followed him—his pre-scrimmage press conference on Thursday was postponed until after the scrimmage due to spending an unexpectedly long time in the treatment room.
As he had done all year, Naylor worked through the pain that day. He went 3-4 with two singles up the middle and a home run in the second scrimmage, his blast opening the scoring for the “home” team dressed in white. In a full-intensity game, Naylor would have scored twice, but a scrimmage jog from second to home in the bottom of the fourth gave Dominic Canzone enough time to throw him out. More importantly for Naylor, however, the scrimmage was an opportunity for reps and for team bonding.
“It’s super beneficial. It gives me a chance to talk a lot of crap to my teammates; it gives them a chance to talk crap to me. It kind of builds a little team camaraderie there,” Naylor said after the action was done. “But on a serious note, it’s always great to go through the motions in a good, positive way, not lackadaisical or anything like that.”
Although Naylor had shown some discomfort after a swing during Wednesday’s scrimmage, he seemed more comfortable during each of his at-bats on Thursday. There wasn’t any visible shaking of the shoulders or bizarre wiggles in the box, but a few solid swings that did the job.
Solid swings have been some of the throughlines for Naylor’s time on the Mariners. Since his arrival in Seattle, Naylor has slashed .299/.341/.490 with nine home runs, 33 RBIs, 32 runs scored, and 18 stolen bases. It is that last number that is most surprising, as Naylor is ranked in the second percentile of sprint speed in MLB. Yet, with what Mariners manager Dan Wilson describes as a “headsy” approach to the game, Naylor has an uncanny ability to pick up on the exact moment when a pitcher is least expecting a swipe. Evidently, this has been an element of his approach for a long time.
“I love watching the game. There were times where I was a little kid, and me and my dad would sit on the couch and watch the game and pick little things apart here and there,” Naylor said. “Obviously, when you’re watching on TV, you can’t see the full field, but once I started playing baseball, I wanted to understand it on a different level. I’m still growing, I’m still learning. It’s hard sometimes, but I think if you can pick one thing a game to lock in on, and try to understand, and try to read a little bit better, then you’ll be better for the next time that opportunity arises.”
It is this mentality that has turned him into one of the more unexpected 30-base swipers in the game. Before 2025, the most bags Naylor had ever taken in a season was 10 in 2023—but by the time he was traded to the Mariners in late July, he had already stolen 11. Five more followed before the end of the month, then seven in August and the same in September.
While every playoff game in the calendar is surely circled with red ink, Sunday’s evening matchup against Tarik Skubal is the most daunting for the hitters. Skubal, the ace of the Tigers’ bullpen and of the whole Junior Circuit, has lit up the baseball world with fastballs, changeups, and a few sliders, all among the best of each respective pitch. He leads the AL in ERA (2.21), FIP (2.45), WHIP (0.891), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.30). Yet for Naylor, daunting may not be the right word—instead, that word is probably exciting.
“I think it’s super cool to face such elite arms like that, because you get better as a player whether you do good or bad,” Naylor noted. “You prepare a little bit more, a little bit different, you know he’s going to bring his A-game, so you kind of have to bring your A-game. You just grow as a player facing an elite arm like that, you kind of want to face that every day.”
Discipline is the basis of anyone’s A-game, and Naylor is well aware of that fact. Over three postseason stints with Cleveland, he has struggled a fair amount, slashing .256/.272/.410 over 19 games. All three times, his final game was a loss to the Yankees: once in the 2022 Wild Card Series, once in the 2023 ALDS, and once in the 2024 ALCS. While there is a very real chance Naylor will end up facing them again should the M’s and Yanks both advance to the ALCS this year, the task at hand is the Detroit Tigers, a team with which he has more familiarity due to his years with the Guardians.
“I think them and Cleveland are very comparable … good pitching, but just a scrappy kind of lineup,” Naylor said about the Tigers. “Playing them for all those years, no lead was really ever safe. You really had to ‘step on their throat’ type of thing right when you could, just continue to get runs because anything could happen.”
Anything can happen might as well be the motto of this month. The baseball world will analyze, ask, compile, compare, and spin each moment of each inning of each game that these eight remaining teams will yet play; the only thing they will not do is forget. This is what the kids dream of in sandlots from San Diego to the St. Lawrence, and the players on the field now, Naylor included, have the mammoth mental task of keeping themselves level as the Fall Classic nears.
“It’s kind of hard to not put pressure on yourself in these moments in the season, just because you want to be the guy, you want to be a hero, and every game and every pitch is important, every 90 feet is important,” Naylor said. “But I think it’s more important to play stress-free, go out there and enjoy the moment. You never know when it’s going to be your last day on the field, you never know when it’s going to be your last time in the postseason.”
For a team in the playoffs for just the sixth time in almost 50 years, those words are haunting. Yet they are also motivating, bringing to mind those few words in the back of every mind in SoDo—is this the year?
