Vitamin SEA: Not Quite My Tempo
The Mariners are dragging their way through the season, and patience is running thin.
Every time I try to say nice things about the 2026 Mariners, they go and prove me wrong again.
The good news is they finally broke their 13-game streak of scoring 3 or fewer runs, the longest such streak in the American League since 1972. The bad news? They lost anyway.
This is a Mariners team that in years past has had rough stretches followed by stretches of brilliance, but with enough consistency to keep fans happy and hopeful. This season is different, and let’s go through the numbers to understand what is so infuriating about this team right now.
42-43: Mariners record so far. The team has slipped back under .500 and lost the division lead.
2: Times that the Mariners have won back-to-back series this year. Nearly every series win is immediately followed by a series loss.
0: Times I have written back-to-back positive articles this season. This is a personal strain on me.
1-5: Mariners record in games that I personally attended. Help me out a little here, guys. One of those losses was a first date.
-0.5: Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor’s combined WAR this season. Two of the big reasons for last season’s success are complete non-factors.
12: “It’s over” declarations from my Mariners fans group chat.
25: Games that Brendan Donovan, the primary offseason pickup for the Mariners, has played in so far.
11-14: Record in one run games. It’s clear that the Mariners can win close games, but they don’t. This isn’t a bad enough stat to be dooming, it’s just bad enough to be annoying. It sums up a lot of the season: Good enough to not be out of it, but not good enough to inspire any confidence.
The Mariners are not a bad baseball team. If they were, they would have a worse record than one game under .500. But clearly they are not a good baseball team right now either. It feels like back in the mid-2010’s, when the team had stars and flashy moments and cool wins, and always came up just short. Except this time there aren’t very many flashy moments. I’m not complaining that the Mariners are bad, I’m complaining that they are no fun at all to watch. Fans are calling for Dan Wilson’s job, and maybe a little shakeup isn’t the worst idea. I won’t lie and say I’ve been very inspired by his managerial decisions.
Is a manager change going to fix everything? Of course not. It rarely does. If you aren’t convinced, there’s a great video that we just made on the subject. But right now there is no indication that things are turning around for the Mariners. They can’t go on like this.
Go M’s,
Henry “Wild Card hopeful” Neiman