After getting thoroughly pantsed by the Houston Astros over Memorial Day weekend, the Seattle Mariners badly need a reset as they prepare for a nine-game homestand at T-Mobile Park.
At least in theory, it’s hard to do better than the three games the M’s will play against the Washington Nationals between Tuesday and Thursday. They are 25-29 this season, and have lost more games than all but two other teams since winning the World Series in 2019.
The Nats’ ongoing misery is such that they’re getting dunked on by the national media. While Mariners fans have every right to be frustrated with how the franchise is better at developing talent than it is at spending on talent, four words from a Tuesday column by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic are a reminder that it could be worse: “The Nationals do neither.”
The Nationals are riding a heater into Seattle, where the Mariners badly need their bats to wake up
This said, this is another situation where the Mariners would be wise to not take a seemingly beatable opponent lightly.
The Nationals are rolling into Seattle after having won seven of their last 10 games, wherein their two best offensive weapons continued to click. Outfielder James Wood and shortstop CJ Abrams have been carrying their lineup all year, and have combined to hit five homers in the club’s last 10 games.
Also showing signs of life is Dylan Crews, who was famously the No. 2 pick in the 2023 draft after Paul Skenes. His major league career got off to a sputtering start, but he’s homered three times and gotten on base at a .394 clip since May 10.
The notion of the Mariners going up against even a mild offensive threat is frankly terrifying right now. The hot bats that the club displayed in April have entered into an ice age in May, with the M’s scoring only 3.5 runs per game since the third day of the month.
This is not about Julio Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh, and Randy Arozarena, who have continued to carry Seattle’s lineup with a combined 154 wRC+ in May. It is about basically everyone else, though it especially hurts that J.P. Crawford has cooled down in the leadoff spot and that Jorge Polanco has been in a deep slump in the No. 2 hole.
It doesn’t help that the Mariners are one of a handful of teams in MLB that can’t count on home cooking to get the bats warm again. T-Mobile Park is nobody’s favorite place to hit, and it has thus far held M’s hitters to a .673 OPS in 2025. It’s the seventh-worst home OPS in the league.
Further, MacKenzie Gore looms in the third game of the series on Thursday. He leads the majors with 93 strikeouts, and he’ll have a natural advantage against this Mariners offense. It has bowed before left-handed starters thus far, hitting just .238 with a .653 OPS against them.
The Mariners may simply have to pitch and field their way to victory in this series. To this end, the hope is that they field the ball more cleanly than they did in Houston. And also that George Kirby can keep his adrenaline in check in his first start back in Seattle, with Logan Evans and Emerson Hancock likewise hopefully keeping up their strong recent work. There is otherwise a chance of Bryce Miller taking a turn in the finale of this series.
No less than the AL West lead is at stake. The Mariners carried a 3.5-game lead over the Astros into last weekend, and came out of it with a mere 1.5-game lead. While the M’s tackle the Nats, the Astros will play two against an Athletics squad that just lost 11 games in a row.
“Things will get better” is the incantation that Mariners fans have no choice but to keep repeating. And we don’t even mean that in a cynical way, as injury returns, prospect promotions, and the upcoming July 31 trade deadline should all result in the Mariners strengthening their roster.
But with a 9-11 record dating back to May 4, it says something about how the Mariners are looking right now that even a three-game set against the lowly Nationals feels like a threat.
Game Times and Probable Pitchers for Mariners vs. Nationals, May 27-29
- Tuesday, May 27 at 6:40 p.m. PT: Mitchell Parker vs. Logan Evans
- Wednesday, May 28 at 6:40 p.m. PT: Trevor Williams vs. George Kirby
- Thursday, May 29 at 6:40 p.m. PT: MacKenzie Gore vs. Emerson Hancock
