The Mariners’ loss in Sacramento last night stung enough to drop their elimination number into single digits, and that was the headline nobody in Seattle wanted to wake up to. Beyond that, the focus shifts quickly to the bigger picture, where Cole Young is starting to make some noise for all the right reasons.
Adam Jude of the Seattle Times profiled Young’s breakout season in the field and argued that he is making a push for a Gold Glove. It’s another sign that Young’s value is growing in a way that goes beyond the bat and into the kind of defensive impact that gets noticed across the league.
Elsewhere around baseball, Byron Buxton’s season is effectively over. He is set for arthroscopic knee surgery this coming Friday, and Twins manager Derek Shelton said that while the timeline for his return will become clearer after the procedure, Buxton should be on track to open the 2027 season healthy.
The Blue Jays also made a notable call, bringing up outfielder Rudy Martin Jr. Martin has been in professional baseball since being drafted in the now-defunct 25th round in 2014 by the Royals, with stops in Mexico and indy ball along the way. He made his big league debut last night, pinch-running for George Springer in Toronto’s 7-4 loss to the Orioles.
On the pitching side, Michael Baumann at FanGraphs examined Peter Lambert’s breakout season, noting that he now leads the Astros pitching staff in fWAR - something that even Lambert apparently did not see coming.
The Rays and Brewers were the first two clubs to secure playoff spots in 2026. Tampa Bay got there with a dramatic walkoff home run from Junior Caminero, his 40th of the season, while Milwaukee punched its ticket with a 20-0 rout of the Reds.
And at FanGraphs, David Laurila spoke with nine starting pitchers, including Logan Gilbert, about a question that keeps coming up: whether the recent drop in starter innings has had a harmful effect on the game.
In Other News...
Mariners Now Have A First Base Problem They Can't Easily Fix
Josh Naylor gave the Mariners exactly the kind of early jolt they hoped for after joining Seattle, putting together a strong start and piling up hits. But as the season has worn on, the bigger picture has become harder to ignore. He leads the club in hits with 142 through Sept. 11, yet most of those have come as singles, and the lack of damage has left his slugging percentage at .359.
For a team that needs more from the middle of its lineup, that creates a real problem at first base. Naylors power production has faded badly in the 2026 season, with just 10 home runs in 137 games, and the Mariners are left trying to reconcile what they expected from the spot with what they have actually gotten. It complicates both the offense and whatever they had in mind for the position beyond this year. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners May Need A New Manager For One Frustrating Reason
Dan Wilsons first full season in the dugout has given the Mariners a familiar kind of frustration, the sort that invites a bigger conversation about direction rather than just one bad night. His hands-off style has been part of the discussion from the start, along with the way he has managed the bullpen and handled player accountability, and those choices have left some wondering whether the club is getting enough in-game edge when the margins get tight.
Nothing has been decided, and there is no official change on the horizon, but the possibility of a reset is hard to ignore when a season starts feeling like a referendum. If Seattle does move on, the next manager will likely need to bring a firmer strategic presence and a clearer command of the game, because the Mariners seem to be weighing not just results, but whether the current approach is the right fit for what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Mariners Trade With Rays Just Got Tougher To Defend
The deal that sent Randy Arozarena to Seattle looked cleaner for the Mariners when it was built around long-term upside, but Tampa Bay keeps finding ways to make its side of the trade look smart, too. Brody Hopkins is now being called up and added to the Rays 40-man roster after a role change from starter to reliever turned his season around, a reminder of how often Tampa squeezes value out of pitchers other clubs might have given up on.
Hopkins has flashed a fastball that has touched 102 mph, and the results in relief have been much better than what he showed as a starter, with his ERA and WHIP both moving in the right direction. For Seattle, Arozarena has been a productive bat since arriving, but the bigger picture still tilts toward Tampa Bay, which has already locked up a playoff berth while the Mariners have spent the year fighting for ground in the standings. [Read more 🡒]