RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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SEATTLE, WA - AUGUST 24: Digital marquee indicates that there will be no fireworks due to the celebrations for each of three home runs by Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (29) (not pictured) during the MLB game between the Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners on August 24, 2026 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) | Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
With the Mariners showing no consistent signs in the second half that they’d put their first-half struggles behind them, many fans have put to bed their hopes for the playoffs, especially as the team entered into this particularly grueling stretch of a long road trip combined with playing three very tough NL teams: the Brewers, Cubs, and now the Phillies. Both the Brewers and Cubs series featured brutal, humiliating losses, the Brewers a historic 22-0 drubbing and the Cubs – despite a series win thanks to scraping out wins in the first two games – a game that saw multiple position players have to take the mound in a 19-2 loss. But just as the Mariners bounced back to snatch a game from the Brewers after making team history (derogatory), they again bounced back tonight to surprise the Phillies with a dominant 9-2 win that also made history (complimentary).
It certainly didn’t look like things were going to go this way. The game got off to a rough start for Logan Gilbert, who walked Kyle Schwarber on five pitches to lead off the game. He struck out Trea Turner on a spicy 98 mph heater, but then surrendered back-to-back singles to Bryce Harper and Luis Arraez to load the bases with just one out. To Gilbert’s credit, though, he didn’t wilt under pressure, continuing to execute pitch after pitch. Alex Boehm hit into an RBI groundout on a slow roller that could have been an inning-ending double play, and then Gilbert bullied Bryson Stott on four pitches, striking him out on another spicy heater. In the end, the Phillies only got one run out of all that traffic, and the only real damage was done to Logan’s pitch count, at 29.
But Zack Wheeler had his own struggles in the bottom of the first, and would finish the inning with a similarly inflated pitch count (33) but significantly more damage on the scoreboard thanks to two Mariners home runs. MULTI-run home runs, even, which is delightful. Randy Arozarena led off the game with a walk, followed by a sharply-hit single from Dominic Canzone (110 EV), and then Julio Rodríguez – who scuffled in the Cubs series, going 1-for-13 with seven strikeouts – tattooed a splitter that caught too much plate for a home run into the visitor’s bullpen.
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And then, and this is the part you’ll really like, the Mariners didn’t stop there. So often we’ve seen this team score a few early and then take their foot off the gas. Instead, they kept the pressure on Wheeler in the first, with Josh Naylor singling into right field (but then getting thrown out and also bonked on the head trying to stretch it into a double, no Josh!), and then Taylor Ward refusing to chase off the plate for a walk to extend Wheeler’s inning. That brought up Cal Raleigh, and Wheeler tried to dispense of him with a fastball up, a pitch Cal has been consistently missing this season. He did not miss this one:
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Asked if that’s a pitch he would have missed a few weeks ago, Cal was brutally honest. “I mean, I’d like to say no, but I don’t know. I know when I wasn’t getting that pitch in the middle up a little, I was just missing it. Even though I was seeing it well, I wasn’t taking advantage of it. And today I was able to take advantage of it, so I feel good.”
So the question is which starter would absorb the punch in the mouth better, and which offense would continue to stress the starter’s workloads. It was Gilbert who blinked first, getting two strikes on J.T. Realmuto but then leaving a four-seamer right in his kitchen for him to pull over the left-field fence to make the game a closer 5-2. Wheeler then did his job to shut the Mariners down in the bottom of the inning, bookending a 1-2-3 inning with strikeouts of Brock Rodden and Canzone.
That sent Gilbert right back out facing the teeth of the Phillies lineup, but aside from a line-drive base hit to Harper, Gilbert emerged unscathed. The offense then had an opportunity to really open this game up, once again getting to Wheeler – Julio beat out an infield hit on a bobbled ball from Tuner at short, then Naylor hit the exact same single he did in the first inning but this time didn’t get thrown out, hooray. Ward worked his second walk of the game to load the bases and then with Cal up, Julio scored on a wild pitch, extending the lead to 6-2. Cal then walked to re-load the bases and it felt like the Mariners really had something cooking – except Cole Young grounded out on the first pitch he saw, followed by a Weston Wilson strikeout and a Brock Rodden groundout. So this time it was the Mariners who only got one run, but did drive up Wheeler’s pitch count to 77 through three innings.
After some more navigating around a leadoff base hit on the changeup in the fourth, Gilbert hung another zero. The Mariners looked like they might be back to pressing Wheeler again, with Randy working a leadoff walk – already Wheeler’s fifth of the game – but Canzone chose that time to hit into the game’s first double play, neatly trimming a few pitches off Wheeler’s pitch count. Julio kept the line moving by torturing Turner again, smacking a sweeper at him that he couldn’t handle, and Naylor kept things going after that with a sharp single up the middle that pushed Julio to third. Ward couldn’t come up with yet another walk, grounding out to end the inning, but with Wheeler at 94 pitches, it looked like the Mariners would be able to get into the Phillies bullpen early, always a plus in the first game of a serie...
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