Brendan Donovan keeps showing the Mariners exactly why they wanted him at the top of the order.
On Wednesday night, he was in the middle of everything from the jump. Seattle jumped out to a 7-0 lead against the Brewers a day after getting blasted 22-0 in Milwaukee, and Donovan played a major role in setting that tone.
By the time he came up for his third plate appearance, he already had two hits and two runs. Then he did the kind of work that doesn’t always jump off the box score but changes innings anyway: he battled Brewers reliever Grant Anderson for 10 pitches and drew a two-out walk after starting in an 0-2 hole.
Anderson had needed only eight pitches to record two outs when he entered in the third, but Donovan forced him to keep throwing. That at-bat pushed Anderson’s pitch count well past where it had been and made sure Milwaukee had to dip back into the bullpen in the fourth instead of letting him carry the inning forward.
That’s the sort of contribution the Mariners have been missing for much of the year because Donovan, their 2025 National League All-Star and biggest offseason addition, has been limited by core injuries. He missed 80 games, and Seattle has been waiting for this version of him.
The 29-year-old returned from nearly three months on the injured list on Aug. 4, but his impact really started to show once the Mariners moved him back to leadoff on Saturday in Houston. In that 10-5 win over the Astros, Donovan went 3 for 5 with three RBIs and helped Seattle rebound from what had been its worst loss of the season at that point, a 10-7 defeat the night before when Christian Walker’s three-run walk-off homer ended it in the 10th inning.
Then Wednesday happened, and the bar changed again after Tuesday’s 22-0 shutout became the new low point. Donovan opened the game with an infield single, scored to give Seattle the lead, then did the same thing in the second inning as the Mariners built that commanding 7-0 cushion. He finished by reaching base four times in Seattle’s 7-5 win over the team with the best record in baseball.
Since returning to the No. 1 spot in the lineup on Saturday, Donovan is hitting .400 (6 for 15) with a double, three walks and a .500 on-base percentage over his first four games. Seattle has won three of those four, and all three wins came on the road against division leaders.
Dan Wilson said after Wednesday’s game that Donovan is doing exactly what the Mariners envisioned.
“What he does at the top of the order is he gets on base,” Wilson said after Wednesday’s win. “Whether it’s walking, he just puts up good at-bats.
I think he had a 10-pitch at-bat at one point tonight. He finds a way on with the bat, he finds a way on with a walk, and makes things happen at the top of that lineup.
“And when you got the guys behind him like he does, you’re going to score some runs there, and that was the case tonight in those first two innings. It was huge.”
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