If the first dozen games of this Mariners season have felt derivative to you, that wouldn\u2019t be misplaced. Dating back to 2023, Seattle has stumbled out of the gate, starting each season with a record of 4-8. Thankfully, in all previous three years, the M\u2019s have bounced back, staunching the bleeding to win their next game (and more often than not the few following ones). But hasn\u2019t that script gotten old? The trips to the callback well surely wore thin in 2025. What\u2019s next, a clip show episode? A main character has a baby?<\/p>\n
You\u2019d do well to know that a new path has been chosen.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s morning contest got off to a promising start, with Rob Refsnyder battling back from an 0-2 count (and missing his first hit of the season by about two feet when he hammered a line drive down the third-base line foul) to work a leadoff walk against new Rangers lefty MacKenzie Gore. Cal Raleigh\u2019s slow start to the year continued on a strikeout, but Julio Rodr\u00edguez drew a second walk on a 3-1 pitch that probably would have been challenged in a higher-leverage spot. Although Randy Arozarena and Brendan Donovan both went down on strikes, Seattle pushed Gore\u2019s pitch count up to 26 to open the game; always an encouraging early sign.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Bryan Woo stepped out of the gate as his usual self; breezy pace, bevy of fastballs, brisk at-bats. He needed eight fewer pitches to get through two frames than Gore used for one, and aside from a true jammed bleeder from Brandon Nimmo to lead off the first allowed no baserunners. Mitch Garver contributed with a keen ABS challenge in the second against Evan Carter, flipping a 1-1 count to 0-2 before Carter harmlessly flew out to Julio a few pitches later. Despite the efficiency, though, there were some scary contact moments, most notably a shot to left field off the bat of Jake Burger that Randy caught right at the wall and would have been out in seventeen big league ballparks. Those worries continued when Josh H. Smith led off the third by turning on a first-pitch four-seam up in the zone, sending it deep to right field. Refsnyder, filling in for the freshly injured V\u00edctor Robles<\/a>, had quite the amount of ground to cover, somehow getting a bead on the ball. He leapt, and\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n Jo Adell, eat your heart out. Woo had to work a bit more through his next two frames, picking up a pair of strikeouts from Ezequiel Dur\u00e1n and Wyatt Langford that sandwiched a double over Julio\u2019s head from Nimmo. Corey Seager led off the fourth with a walk, but was erased on a double play from Burger.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gore settled in, facing the minimum through his next three frames, including striking out the side in order in the third. Any chances for a no-hitter were put to rest in the fifth, though, when Mitch Garver led off the fifth with a solidly stroked base hit into center field for his first knock of the season. After having a possible double taken away by a diving stop by Dur\u00e1n in the third, it was a nice treat to see the Garv man get on the board. Any hopes of a big inning were dashed by a one-out double play from newest Mariner Connor Joe – on the second hardest-hit ball of the game. Tough scenes.<\/p>\n The bottom of the frame is where Woo began to wobble, despite getting a seven-pitch flyout from Carter for the first out. Danny Jansen grinded out another seven-pitch at-bat before hitting a bounding ball to third that Donovan cleanly fielded, but got off a weak throw due to his feet being improperly set, allowing the not-fleet-footed Jansen to reach. Smith and Dur\u00e1n followed with a pair of much more legitimate singles, loading the bases for just the guy we all wanted to see in this spot: Brandon Nimmo. Woo got the count to 1-1, and got Nimmo jammed on an inside fastball, dribbling the ball up the third base line. Joe, giving Josh Naylor the day off at first, charged, fielded, and threw well offline to home plate, allowing a pair of runs to cross on a ball that went maybe seventy feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kyle\u2019s brother tacked on the third and final run of the game with a routine sacrifice fly, and the rest of the game passed by in a blurry blink. While the M\u2019s got Gore out of the game through five on the back of that hefty first inning, the Rangers relievers were suffocating, allowing just one baserunner (a soft line drive into right field from Cole Young leading off the ninth. Hell yeah, Cole) over the last four frames in economical fashion. Jos\u00e9 A. Ferrer, Eduard Bazardo, and Gabe Speier all stitched together three scoreless innings, facing the minimum thanks to a caught stealing by Garver and a double play from Dur\u00e1n. If you\u2019re looking for a crumb of good news, Speier particularly looked sharp, picking up a pair of strikeouts in the eighth inning to get some work in.<\/p>\n The Mariners fell today to 4-9 for the first time in the Dipoto era. If nothing else, this year has gotten off to a different start. An off day tomorrow feels like a gift for fans and players alike before they head back home, kicking off the homestand with a weird, wrap-around Friday-to-Monday series with the Astros – who have just been swept by the Rockies. We\u2019ll see how that turns out when we get there, but for now, I am prescribing reading a book, playing a video game, going for a walk (it\u2019s a perfect spring day in Seattle if you\u2019re so inclined), or any other activity is not paying a disastrous road trip any mind. You\u2019ve earned that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the first dozen games of this Mariners season have felt derivative to you, that wouldn\u2019t be misplaced.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,38487,77416,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-671158","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-seattle-mariners-scores-standings","15":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371675357117773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671158","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=671158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}