{"id":342443,"date":"2025-09-26T07:09:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T07:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/342443\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T07:09:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T07:09:17","slug":"eugenio-suarez-swats-49th-homer-of-2025-as-mariners-sweep-rockies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/342443\/","title":{"rendered":"Eugenio Su\u00e1rez swats 49th homer of 2025 as Mariners sweep Rockies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The stakes have rarely been this low.<\/p>\n

The Mariners finished a sweep of the Rockies on Thursday with a 6-2 win in Seattle. Eugenio Su\u00e1rez swatted a two-run home run early to give the Mariners a lead they would not relinquish. Emerson Hancock was excellent in an abbreviated outing; the bullpen kept things painless behind him. It was the Mariners\u2019 first win in quite some time that didn\u2019t mean much in the standings.<\/p>\n

The regular season largely wrapped up before first pitch. The Tigers beat the Guardians 4-2, guaranteeing the Mariners a first-round bye in the playoffs. Having clinched the AL West Wednesday, after a months-long chasedown of the Astros, the list of things left for the Mariners to accomplish in 2025 was limited.<\/p>\n

Immediately after clinching, Dan Wilson flipped the switch. Cal Raleigh moved from catcher to DH in the starting lineup, and the reserve squad slowly subbed in throughout the game. Wilson noted the bye puts them in a good spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in a position to get some guys some rest who we think need some rest,\u201d he said postgame. \u201cThe trick is to be ready, and then to stay ready during that week. \u2026 We\u2019re going to talk about that and get some planning down and be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Low-stakes baseball didn\u2019t look much different. Geno got the Mariners on the board in the second inning with his 49th homer of the year<\/a>, tying a career-best mark from 2019. Rockies\u2019 starter Bradley Blalock threw 1-1 slider that hung over the plate, and Geno didn\u2019t miss, barreling it into the bullpen in left. Geno later picked up a pair of singles in the middle innings, going 3-for-4 on the day with three RBIs. After a slow start following the trade deadline, he now has a 104 wRC+ in Seattle.<\/p>\n

The Mariners\u2019 lineup would add on three runs in the fourth and another run in the fifth, giving them a comfortable lead the Rockies never challenged, even after picking up stray runs late. The Mariners finished the day with 10 hits, six walks and a .374 wOBA. Despite not playing their A-squad throughout, they maintained their September surge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As did Emerson Hancock, who got the start in place of a Bryan Woo. Hancock didn\u2019t allow a run or walk while striking out seven in four innings. While his length was limited, having shifted to the bullpen at the beginning of the month, it was arguably the best start of his career. He picked up 10 whiffs on 51 pitches for a career-best 19.1% swing-and-miss rate. All six swings he got on his sweeper generated a whiff.<\/p>\n

Hancock began the season as a starter but struggled before being sent to minors (and the bullpen) in July. Since returning as a reliever on Sept. 1, he\u2019s posted a 2.08 ERA and 2.56 FIP in six relief appearances. He said the process of working out of the pen has given him a bit of perspective on what he needs to prepare for a game \u2014 something he called on Thusdaay.<\/p>\n

\u201dIt felt good to go through that whole routine [as a starter]. The whole day I just felt less anxious. All I\u2019ve ever known is the starter routine, like the whole day, it\u2019s a whole build up. And as a reliever, you don\u2019t have that time. So in a way, you\u2019re creating trust and confidence in yourself to say, \u2018I can throw six pitches and I can go in the game.\u2019 And today it was like, I\u2019m just gonna warm up to get loose, and I\u2019m gonna throw a couple off the mound. It was crazy. I threw like 10 and I was like, all right, I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hancock is unlikely to get a start in the playoffs. Kate Preusser reported Tuesday that the Mariners have \u201czero plans<\/a>\u201d to place Woo on the injured list for pectoral tightness that cut his last outing short. But Hancock could still make the playoff roster as a multi-inning option out of the pen. His outing Thursday was a confidence builder and a cap to a season of transformation. It began with a disastrous outing in March, and it ended Thursday with his best ever start in a pinch.<\/p>\n

\u201dYou just can\u2019t be stuck in one way. You have to be open to many different avenues. So if it\u2019s like, alright, here\u2019s a spot start, you\u2019re starting today\u2014 sure, I\u2019m ready to go,\u201d Hancock said. \u201cI can\u2019t say that at the beginning of the season, would I have had the confidence and belief to be able to make those adjustments and change on the fly? I don\u2019t think I would. \u2026. This process, it teaches you to be okay with that and believe in yourself with confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just trying to go out and do my job, and that\u2019s all I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 704 games the Mariners played this decade heading into Thursday, all but 13 were spent clawing for something just out of reach.<\/p>\n

The 2020 season, strange as it was, didn\u2019t end for the Mariners until game 57 (out of 60) due to the expanded playoffs. All but three games mattered in the standings.The 2021 season came down to the final day. They were eliminated in the middle innings of game 162.The 2022 season ended with Cal Raleigh\u2019s walkoff homer in game 156, snapping the playoff drought. They played six games in purgatory while 16 back of the Astros in the AL West.The 2023 season ended with a devastating loss in game 161. They played one final game, to a 1-0 win.The 2024 season ended following game 159. They underscored their \u201calmost\u201d season with a three-game sweep of the A\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Mariners began September with four consecutive losses in what was surely the darkest days of the season. At best, they appeared set for a make-or-break final series with the Dodgers and the familiar gnashing that\u2019s marked years past.<\/p>\n

If they win the last three games of 2025, they will tie April 2001 for the best month in franchise history. The Mariners have nothing to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stakes have rarely been this low. The Mariners finished a sweep of the Rockies on Thursday with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,38487,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-342443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattle-mariners-game-recaps","14":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115269347888740063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}