For the most part, Hancock looked like the new-and-improved version of himself on Monday. He continued to pound the zone with fastballs at 95 mph, issuing zero walks. And he continued to expand the zone with sweepers to righties and the changeups to lefties. He racked up 11 whiffs on 51 swings and three strikeouts. Again, for the most part, it worked. Hancock scattered a few singles, stranding a couple early, generating a double play in the fourth, and even picking off Lawrence Butler in the fifth. Again, with no walks, those were the only runners who reached base against him.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, three others reached base and just kept running. In the fourth, Hancock threw an up and in fastball to Carlos Cortes leading off the inning \u2014 the pitch didn\u2019t even catch the zone \u2014 but Cortes was sitting on it and turned it into the right field seats.<\/p>\n
In the sixth, Hancock threw a middle-middle fastball to slugger Nick Kurtz, who crushed it out to center. Hancock threw the same pitch to the next batter, slugger Shea Langeliers, who also crushed it to center. The back-to-back homers tied the game at 3-3 and ended Hancock\u2019s day.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the locations of those homers:<\/p>\n
In the end, the stat line for Hancock was five innings, seven hits, three strikeouts, no walks, and three homers. That\u2019s not a good line. And it could have been worse. He also gave up a lot of hard contact in addition to the homers. Here\u2019s an out he was fortunate to get: Kurtz hit a sharp liner to center to leadoff the game that seemed to knuckle and forced Julio to make an acrobatic play:<\/p>\n Still, this looked like the \u201cgood\u201d version of Hancock we\u2019ve seen so far from this year. The velocity was there. The movement was there. And the whiffs were there. Is it good to throw a pair of middle-middle fastballs to two of the best sluggers in the league? No. But this was a lot different from Hancock\u2019s poor outings from the past three years.<\/p>\n Jose Ferrer was next in line in the sixth after the back-to-back homers. He immediately gave up a hard single against the shift to Cortes. He got the next two batters to fly out, but a broken bat single and a hit by pitch loaded the bases. Ferrer then got Lawrence Butler to hit a hard chopper right back to the mound. Ferrer reached up and snagged it over his head, and after a bit of scampering to find the ball for a moment, he realized it was in his glove, tossed it to first, and escaped the inning.<\/p>\n Matt Brash worked an uneventful seventh inning against the top of the order to keep the game tied at 3-3.<\/p>\n By the eighth, however, Dan Wilson seemed to be out of relievers. Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz and Gabe Speier had each pitched on back-to-back days, and Eduard Bazardo had thrown a lot of pitches recently as well. Wilson instead went with Casey Legumina, who wasn\u2019t very good. He gave up a leadoff double, followed by a single and a walk to load the bases. For a moment, it looked like he might escape with minimal damage after a sac fly to make the game 4-3. But a single from Butler plated the remaining runners to give the A\u2019s a 6-3 lead, and eventually, the win.<\/p>\n It was overall a good day for the Mariners offense. In the bottom of the first, Raleigh flipped a homer the other way to open the scoring. Julio followed with a rocket single up the middle, and Naylor doubled him home to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n Naylor continued to swing at just about every pitch he saw Monday and this time picked up three hits, including his first two doubles of the season. He\u2019s now up to a 54 wRC+ in 2026, which isn\u2019t good but still about five-times higher than his 15 wRC+ from before the Rangers series. It\u2019d be nice to see him start working the count again, but the results are starting to come around. He also picked up his first stolen base of the season and was back to being a pitcher\u2019s pest on the bases, flinging his arms around at second base and earning a scolding from A\u2019s start JT Ginn on his way to dugout in the first inning; Naylor was undeterred and continued to gesture wildly the rest of the game.<\/p>\n Dominic Canzone also had a nice day. He plopped a homer to right in the second inning to make it 3-0, and later lasered a double off the right field wall at 111.8 mph. Both pitches were elevated on the inner part of the plate \u2014 the pitches he\u2019s the very best in the world at hitting.<\/p>\n The Mariners made things interesting late. In the eighth, down 6-3, Julio and Naylor each hit one-out singles. But Randy Arozarena flew out, as did Rob Refsnyder, who was still in the game after pinch-hitting for Luke Raley in the sixth.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/870e46fa-adf0-4f1e-b226-8f16e5fd90a5.jpg\"\/)
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