What Brock and Salk learned from Seattle Mariners homestand

The first homestand of 2026 didn’t meet the sky-high expectations the Seattle Mariners had entering this season, but there’s still another 155 games to reach that bar.

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The M’s put together a 3-4 opening homestand. If it feels like a familiar place for the club, that’s because it is. It’s the sixth time in the past seven seasons Seattle has started 3-4.

With the Mariners hitting the road for series against AL West rivals Los Angeles and Texas, Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Thursday shared what they learned from the first homestand.

T-Mobile won’t be problem for Donovan

New third baseman Brendan Donovan certainly didn’t disappoint at the plate in his regular season action in front of his new home crowd.

Donovan hit two homers, including a leadoff homer in the season opener, two doubles and led the team with 10 hits.

“I think Brendan Donovan’s gonna be just fine at T-Mobile. I mean, that was my one question. Sometimes starts to a season are totally irrelevant, but for a new guy to the Mariners coming here in chilly weather in March and starting his Mariner career by killing it at home, that is absolutely relevant to me because we know how new players at this park can fare,” co-host Mike Salk said.

“And if he had a bunch of balls that hung up or (were) marine-layered or whatever it is, and then he starts trying to overcompensate or change his swing, we’ve just seen how it gets in people’s head when they show up here for the first time after an entire career somewhere else. He was on base in every single game. I think that’s great news.”

Co-host Brock Huard was hesitant to draw too much from the short sample size, but he couldn’t deny Donovan looked like a good fit for pitcher friendly T-Mobile Park.

“I think if you were to pick the kind of just approach and style and swing and spray and everything else to counteract the challenges of T-Mobile in April and May, he’d look a lot like Brendan Donovan,” Huard said.

Offense should be fine

The Mariners’ opening homestand featured some highs and lows at the plate.

They scored at least four runs in all four games against Cleveland, including an eight-run performance in the series finale. But they mustered just five runs over their three games against the Yankees, which included being shutout for the first time.

Additionally, Seattle received major contributions from the bottom half of its lineup with strong homestands from Luke Raley, Cole Young and Dominic Canzone. But sluggers Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor struggled while going a combined 7 for 78 at the plate.

Salk ultimately felt good about the offense despite up-and-down results.

“I feel pretty good about their ability to score runs. I really do. I know that it didn’t look that way necessarily during the seven-game (homestand), but you did face tough pitching, you did it in awfully cold weather and you essentially scored runs without your three biggest stars doing anything,” he said. “I mean, those three guys all had a lousy week and your offense was still good enough to survive. And by the way, those three stars, I know there’s a lot of negativity around it today and you can certainly point to all the bad numbers that the three of them had for the week, but it was just a week and those three guys do have a track record that tells me they’re going to be OK.”

“I was really impressed with Luke Raley’s series, with Dominic Canzone’s series,” Salk added. “Some of those X-factor guys, even Victor Robles, there was some really nice things you saw outside of the stars.”

Huard sees a group that will still be rather dependent on hitting home runs.

“When they don’t hit any (like) in these three games against the Yankees, it’s gonna be hard to win a series,” Huard said. “I know that’s baseball in general and at large, but I think for this crew with Josh and Cal and Julio and the guys in the middle there that we talk about, they gotta do damage.”

Concerns

Salk came away from the homestand with three things he found a little concerning that he will be keeping an eye on moving forward.

“I’m a little concerned about, as we said, the defense at third,” he said. “Little concerned about this lineup against left-handers, I think there’s something to watch for there. We were worried about it heading into the year and I still find myself worried about it now… I just think depth-wise… I am a little nervous about where that bullpen is at.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays form 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

What Brock and Salk learned from Seattle Mariners homestand

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