Colt Emerson's arrival not enough to help Mariners prevent sweep by Padres
If they stay true to their contradictory performance patterns of the first 48 games of the 2026 season - play well for a week, play poorly the following week, play better and win a series, play worse and lose a series - you can expect the Mariners to look and play like the high-level, postseason-caliber team over the next three days against the Chicago White Sox, who are coming off a sweep of the Chicago Cubs.
Realistically, they can't play much worse than they did over the weekend while getting swept by the San Diego Padres. So some sort of improvement must be ahead.
With a large crowd of 40,365 packing T-Mobile Park for a sunny if not warm early evening start time, a national TV audience watching on NBC's Sunday Night Baseball" and top prospect Colt Emerson making his MLB debut, it seemed like a good environment for the Mariners to salvage at least one victory in the season series against their "natural" rivals.
Instead, they slogged their way through a disappointing 8-3 loss.
San Diego swept the season series vs. the Mariners, going 6-0 in the oft-promoted and manufactured matchup rivalry called the Vedder Cup. Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, who is actually a Cubs fan, couldn't write a song sad enough to describe the Mariners' performance in the two three-game series.
Seattle fell to 22-26 and seem to be treading water in a pool mixed with mediocrity and inconsistency.
"A tough day, tough series," manager Dan Wilson said. "We're gonna have to turn the page quickly on this one."
How tough was it? The Mariners were held to one hit in the game - a second-inning single from Luke Raley.
The three runs they scored came after they were down 7-0 and were largely a product of the Padres' inability to throw strikes in the bottom of the sixth.
Veteran right-hander Lucas Giolito, who signed in late April and was making his first start of the season, started to tire after five scoreless frames and walked the first three batters he faced.
The Padres brought in reliever Yuki Matsui, who walked Josh Naylor to force in Seattle's first run of the game. Randy Arozarena and Rob Refsnyder followed with sac flies to drive in runs.
George Kirby, who had been one of Seattle's most consistent starting pitchers this season, gave up a season-high six runs in 5 2/3 innings pitched, including four in the seminal sixth inning that he couldn't finish.
It was just the third time he's given up more than two runs in 10 starts this season.
"A couple of his pitches found some plate, and they were able to do some damage on him," Wilson said of Kirby.
Kirby pitched well enough over the first five innings while his teammates showed no signs of providing him with any run support. He gave up a solo homer to Gavin Sheets in the first inning on a first-pitch fastball and allowed an RBI single to old friend Ty France with two outs in the fifth.
But he seemed en route to another quality start until his outing imploded in the sixth. With one out, he allowed a double to Miguel Andujar and then left a changeup in the middle of the plate to Sheets, who deposited it in the right-field stands for his second homer of the game.
"That pitch, I've had some good work with it," Kirby said of the changeup. "I thought I just had to do a little too much with it against Sheets."
Clearly irked at himself, Kirby gave up a double to Manny Machado, struck out Xander Bogaerts and allowed a run-scoring double to Jackson Merrill that ended his outing.
"It was a lack of execution tonight," Kirby said. "I felt great, but I tried to do too much in certain situations. I've just got to make sure I'm in control and committed to my stuff and not really worrying about everything else that's going on.
Sheets reached base in all five plate appearances in the game, adding an RBI double off Alex Hoppe in the seventh to go with a pair of walks. In the six-game series, he was 9 for 18 for a .500 batting average along with a .640 on-base percentage, three doubles, three homers, five RBI, six runs scored, five walks and four strikeouts.
Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.