Observations from Seattle Mariners' 8th straight series win

The season-best winning streak is over, but the Seattle Mariners’ string of series wins continued.

The Mariners’ secured their eighth consecutive series victory by taking two of three games from the Texas Rangers over the weekend at Globe Life Field. They improved to 20-13 and now hold a two-game lead over the second-place Athletics in the AL West.

AL West Standings

The A’s are up next for three games as Seattle makes its first trip to Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, Calif., the temporary home of the Athletics. But first, here’s three observations after another series win.

Reinforcements keep providing

The Mariners’ strong start has come despite a slew of injuries to key players. A big reason they’ve been able to not only stay afloat, but excel, is the reinforcements to the roster have provided contributions. They got more impact from those players in Texas.

Rookie third baseman Ben Williamson was a big part of the two wins. He made a spectacular diving catch and went 2 for 5 with an RBI double in Friday’s 13-1 victory. Williamson also had a key at-bat to move a runner from second to third to help set up Rowdy Tellez’s game-winning single in the ninth inning on Saturday.

Utility infielder Leo Rivas continued to make an impact in his starts during the final two games of the series. He went 2 for 3 with a double Saturday, and he worked a 10-pitch single, stole a base and came around to score during the third inning for the M’s only run in Sunday’s 8-1 loss.

Rookie outfielder Rhylan Thomas, who was called up when Luke Raley went on the injured list Wednesday, also got in on the action during his major league debut Friday. He doubled to leadoff the M’s seven-run fifth inning and drove in a pair of runs.

First glimpse of M’s high-leverage combo

Some of the best news that came out of the weekend for the Mariners was the return of hard-throwing reliever Matt Brash. Brash, who had Tommy John surgery last May, pitched a scoreless frame Saturday in his first MLB game in 581 days. It wasn’t a soft landing spot for the right-hander, either, as he came in during the seventh inning of a 1-1 game.

The Mariners followed Brash with left-hander Gabe Speier in the eighth and closer Andrés Muñoz to shut the door in the ninth for his AL-best 12th save. That seems to be the first glimpse of the team’s top high-leverage combination moving forward.

How much of that combo will we see in the near future? Some of that depends on how games play out, but it will also depend on how much the M’s want to use Brash early on. The final box he checked during his rehab appearance with Tacoma was pitching two games in three days. It seems like that would be most Brash would be used early on, and it could be a while before he is used in back-to-back outings.

Offense sputters after big night

Maybe the Mariners should have saved some of those runs from Friday for the rest of the series? Of course, that’s not how it works, but the offense did sputter with just three runs over the final two games of this series.

Considering the M’s struggles on offense in recent seasons, it’s fair to wonder if this is the moment the lineup starts to come back down to earth. However, it feels like more like a minor blip on the radar.

The Mariners still had 10 hits and 13 hard-hit balls (exit velocity of 95 mph or higher) on Saturday. They struck out just three times and had nine at-bats with runners in scoring position. So the offense was still doing what it’s done all season, creating opportunities.

On Sunday, the lineup ran into two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom, who was coming off three straight strong starts. Tommy John surgery in 2023 has limited deGrom to just 16 starts since signing with the Rangers, but when he’s right, he can shut down any team.

Observations from Seattle Mariners’ 8th straight series win

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