Eduard Bazardo yielded the two runs the Chicago White Sox needed to beat the Seattle Mariners today. His 1-2 breaking ball to veteran OF Randal Grichuk floated over the heart of the plate like a miscategorized deluxe roll of conveyer belt sushi on the cheapest designated plate. Grichuk’s solo shot tied things at 1-1 in the 8th inning, and a sinker doubled to the right field wall by Drew Romo set Chicago in go-ahead position with nobody out.
It did not have to be this way.
The Mariners are in a challenging
position. Their lineup is now ostensibly full health, missing only Victor Robles from their Opening Day roster to health issues. The group as constructed is an imposing one, with five above-average hitters at the top and four more (against righties) looming in the back half. On the bench, Connor Joe has delivered well, including two hits this afternoon that placed him in scoring position twice in late innings with less than two outs.
And yet, this good lineup got nearly blanked today. White Sox righty Davis Martin is no slouch, grazing on innings a season ago in his first serious run as a big leaguer for a 4.10/4.64 ERA/FIP in 142.2 frames. He’s been even better this year, albeit seeming to outpitch his stuff in a way that’s not immediately obvious. But after the first inning, where Julio Rodríguez blistered a 110.5 mph double and Randy Arozarena knocked him in with another sharp single, Seattle settled into a familiar malaise to the previous evening.
Brendan Donovan and Cal Raleigh, both recently returned from injuries, struck a few balls sharply, but for Donovan it was on the ground at a defender, and Raleigh it was yanked foul. Timing still off, injury-impacted, the outcome unmistakable. Seattle’s roster is a well-stacked series of hitters in theory, which has inconsistently been in alignment in their heat. It’s meant running out Raleigh in his worst slump as a big leaguer in the top of the order, and Donovan now in similar stead by happenstance for his first few games back.
This is the conundrum. To run out their top bats consistently while mired in these doldrums is to replicate the difficulties of the season’s earliest days, where Raleigh, Rodríguez, and Josh Naylor couldn’t find a store with hits still in stock, much less afford to purchase one. The alternative is trickier, however. To shunt Raleigh, Donovan, or whichever player is at issue in a given stretch is to say it’s likelier a less-talented player will outperform them, or even to say the player is not as talented as believed at the season’s outset. The latter option is most daunting, because it would cast more serious doubt on the club’s ultimate capacity to rebound from this mediocre first month and a half.
Today, however, they cast themselves into these questions. Without an offense that can muster more than a run on consecutive nights, they’ll lose outings like Saturday, where Luis Castillo continued to struggle, but they’ll also lose gems like today, which could have easily been a celebration of the best Logan Gilbert start in 2026. Not merely excellent, Gilbert was almost flawless, yielding just a single hit in 6.0 shutout frames, punching out nine, and excitingly showcasing the best slider he’s mustered since at least 2025. Seven whiffs and a couple called strikes on the pitch is a great thing to see, but so too was seeing Gilbert ride the bottom third and shadow of the plate with the pitch. Pulled with 87 pitches after six, it was in many ways a highly-efficient appearance by Gilbert to boot. Would that it’d been enough.
Seattle lost this game in the first inning, not getting to Martin after Julio and Randy cracked the seal, as Cal and Luke Raley each punched out. They did it again in the seventh, spoiling Joe’s leadoff double with a flaccid trio of plate appearances. Buoyed in a shaky bottom of the seventh by a stellar bit of glovework by Cole Young, whose shining play was also matched by a great dashing play from Julio Rodríguez earlier in the afternoon. The defensive moment of memory, however, came in that 8th. A softly hit blooper was well-tracked by Randy Arozarena in left field, but a full sprint catch gave way to an airmailed throw that, on target, seemed near-certain to nab Romo at the plate.
You won’t be receiving a video embed here. It would be illustrative, but if you’ve not seen the throw then it won’t add anything to your experience. I promise. Think about a tie game, a poor throw, and a one-run loss. If you can envision it, nod and clear it from your mind. The best hope is that the Mariners can do the same. They’ll try to reset with another four-game set against the Houston Astros, which balanced their ship for a time back in April.
