It’s been four months since the Seattle Mariners played a baseball game. Four months can feel like a long time. A lot happened: the holidays came and went, various roster moves were (and weren’t) made, Rick Rizzs announced his impending retirement, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, nearly the entirety of the Winter Olympics have happened… et cetera. Still, despite how much has happened, just 123 days have passed since the Seattle Mariners last played a baseball game.
“123 days” feels like a lot less time than “4 months”. I’m not sure why — maybe just a quirk of human bias and perception. For most of the last month, I’d identified more with the “4 months” side of things. It seemed like forever since we had baseball. To have gone from each day being punctuated with the joy of the 2025 Mariners, to each having no clear punctuation at all… well, they call it the bleak midwinter for a reason.
Today, though, it felt like baseball never left. From the moment this morning that the Mariners posted the first lineup card of 2026, all the way through the last pitch that non-roster invitee Nick Davila delivered to close out the ninth inning, today was a continuation of the excitement, joy, and momentum of 2025. Peoria Sports Complex looked and sounded like it was at capacity. Nary a patch of grass in the outfield was unoccupied, and every exciting moment on the field was answered by a chorus of jubilant cheers.
It helped that the Mariners’ starting lineup was mostly comprised of their actual projected Opening Day lineup. The same cannot be said of the pitching, as the team looks to more slowly bring their big-league staff up to speed. Non-roster invitee Dane Dunning took the bump for Seattle. Dunning, who projects to be a (hopefully unneeded) depth piece for the Mariners this year, ended up throwing 1.2 scoreless innings after working around some early traffic. His fastball, which last year averaged a hair above 90 MPH, sat around 89 MPH for most of the day. The presence of full Statcast numbers in Spring Training this year is fun. However, as I scour Dane Dunning’s February 20th velocity and vertical break, searching for meaning, it occurs to me that the availability of these data may not be optimal for my mental health. Verdict: Dunning looked fine.
The rest of today’s pitching staff for Seattle was comprised mainly of Guys on the Pile. One highlight was newcomer Cooper Criswell, acquired from the Red Sox over the offseason. Criswell, a soft-tossing righty, induced three strikeouts over two innings, including a particularly nasty one of Manny Machado.
Another familiar face was Troy Taylor, who looks to bounce back from a disappointing 2025. Taylor’s velocity was great: he was already up and over last year’s average speed of 96. Less great was a hung sinker that Romeo Sanabria whacked 416 feet over the center field fence.
Right hander Alex Hoppe, who the Mariners also acquired from the Red Sox this winter, had a doubly disappointing afternoon. A dinger surrendered to Jose Miranda might have been bad enough, but the broadcasting team outed Hoppe as a true sicko: apparently his favorite player growing up was Jack Flaherty? First of all, Flaherty is literally 30 years old and Hoppe is 27, so I truly do not know when he would have idolized Flaherty. Secondly, even if the timeline did make any sense, Hoppe is likely the first person ever to idolize Jack Flaherty.
Fortunately, the hitters on Seattle’s side were a lot more interesting than the pitchers. Luke Raley, Julio Rodríguez, Josh Naylor, Leo Rivas, and Dom Canzone each checked in with hits in their first game back (Raley had two). Canzone made a flashy play in right field, laying out for a sinking line drive to rescue Dunning’s first inning. The real story of today, though, was the young guys. Most specifically Michael Arroyo.
Arroyo, a 21-year-old second baseman who just today was revealed to be working out at third base and in the outfield, watched the first pitch he was thrown. It was a changeup on the corner, called a ball. The Padres challenged, and it was overturned. Arroyo fouled off a second changeup to go down 0-2. A third changeup went right down the middle, and Arroyo took it the other way. It looked somewhat innocuous off the bat, but the ball carried, and carried, and carried. 406 feet later, Arroyo had recorded Seattle’s first home run of 2026.
Star prospect Colt Emerson immediately hit a ball in nearly the exact same spot, but it died before reaching the fence.
Arroyo’s very next at bat saw him hit another ball hard to the same spot. This one dropped short of the fence, but Arroyo was left standing on second base for a double. Not a bad showing for the 67th ranked prospect in all of baseball.
The final effort from today that I wanted to highlight was from fellow Top 100 Prospect Lazaro Montes. In the box score, Montes’ day didn’t look overly impressive: 1-for-3 with a single and a strikeout. The single, however, was one of the more difficult ones you’re likely to see.
The at bat in question was against Padres flamethrower Mason Miller, who we all know well from his days with the Athletics. Montes started by working a 2-2 count off Miller — an impressive feat in its own right. Miller responded by dialing up a 101.5 MPH fastball, which he lost control of. The resulting errant pitch nearly decapitated Montes, who had to leap out of the way. With a slight smile on his face, Montes dug back into the box and fouled off another 101.5 MPH fastball. Miller tried to switch it up with a slider, which Montes pulled for a line drive single into right field. Talk about Big League stuff from the 21-year-old.
Countless battles of NRI-on-NRI later, the Mariners were left standing with a 7-4 advantage over the Padres. Sure, the game was meaningless. Though, isn’t every game meaningless in the long run? Everything, even?
With meaning ultimately left as an exercise for the reader, I hope you enjoyed seeing the sunlight today, even if it was through a laptop or television screen. Fewer than five weeks remain until Opening Day and fewer than three until Daylight Savings. We made it.
