It wasn’t a start to the second half that the Mariners could afford to have.
After Eduard Bazardo allowed the bottom two hitters of the Reds order to reach in the top of the seventh Wednesday, Sal Stewart punished him with a two-out, three-run homer just over the wall in right field to give Cincinnati a 5-3 lead and deliver a back-breaking blow to a Mariners team that is, for a lack of a better way to say it, running out of time to figure things out.
The homer proved to be decisive. With the loss, the Mariners once again fall below .500 — this time over 100 games into a season where they were viewed by many to be a favorite in a weak American League. For months now, I’ve lived with a mindset that things will turn. However, as more days pass and the results fail to improve, I’m forced to confront the reality that maybe this is who the 2026 Mariners are. Underperformances from stars, terrible injury luck, and a failure to make the most of their opportunities — it could all be too much to overcome.
It’s not over, but the turning point is going to have to come soon.
All of the sudden, pressure mounts as the M’s head to Arlington for the biggest series of their year thus far. They’ll face the Texas Rangers in a four-game wrap-around series starting Friday that could swing the top of the AL West standings drastically. As it stands, the Mariners could fall behind 1.5 games if the Rangers win Wednesday evening.
“Every game down the stretch here is big, and there’s a lot of baseball in front of us yet and a chance to find that consistent stride…We just need to concentrate on that as we get onto the road trip,” Wilson said postgame. “I don’t think we need any more extra pressure. I think there’s plenty of that. We just need to find our way and get ourselves consistent, and play the brand of baseball we know we’re capable of.”
For some periods Wednesday, it seemed like the Mariners could eke out a victory to secure an acceptable 4-2 homestand against two opponents that were plenty beatable. Cal Raleigh got the Mariners off to solid start in the bottom of the second. He lined a RBI single into right to score Josh Naylor, who had just stolen second to move into scoring position after blooping a single to center off of Elly De La Cruz’s glove.
It turned out this was a start to a volatile couple of innings where the lead went back-and-forth between the two teams. To lead off the top of the fourth, JJ Bleday turned on a 86 mph cutter from Emerson Hancock for a towering solo shot into the seats in right field, tying the game at one.
Hancock spent some of the All-Star break resting the sore hand he got on a comebacker in the final game of the first half. He said it was a little difficult coming back from the break because it’s hard to simulate major league pitches. Hancock forced a couple of ugly swings and misses with his sweeper — when he was landing it.
“There’s certain cues and adjustments that I feel like I’ll make with that pitch throughout the game,” Hancock said. “I just keep throwing it, keep trusting it, and you’ll find a really good feel for it. We were able to execute a couple good ones today.”
That said, he lost the handle on a couple of them in the early going, including a wild pitch in the fourth that moved Tyler Stephenson to third after a two-out double. The mistake proved costly; even though Cole Young was able to make a diving stop on a subsequent grounder from Dane Myers, he couldn’t quite get the handle on the ball to make the throw to first, and the runner scored from third to give the Reds a 2-1 lead on a play that could’ve ended the inning.
The Mariners had a quick response in the bottom half of the fourth, with Luke Raley driving in a couple with a hard-hit liner into the gap in right-center on the first pitch he saw from Brady Singer. Both Naylor and Randy Arozarena came around, making the score 3-2 in favor of Seattle.
After running into trouble in the fourth, Hancock was able to settle down and retire the next six hitters to turn in a decent outing. He only struck out three hitters and forced nine whiffs, but outside of the homer by Bleday, he was able to limit the hard contact and keep the Reds offense in check. He notched a quality start, allowing only the two runs on five hits over six innings of work.
The opportunities for the Mariners offense were few and far between after Raley put them in front. The only baserunner to reach second after this point was Julio Rodríguez, who doubled to the wall in the left-center gap to bring the tying run to the plate in the eighth. In the end though, Arozarena and Dominic Canzone would both ground out to extinguish their last scoring threat of the day.
As it turns out, the Mariners dropped the series against the Reds and will have to settle for a 3-3 split of their six games to open the second half at T-Mobile Park. In and of itself, it could obviously be worse than 3-3 — but given the 1-5 stretch into the All-Star break and a tough schedule upcoming, this is certainly not what they had in mind.
In Seattle, we’ve become accustomed to the late-season surge. The Mariners are going to have to find one, yet again.
