In case you are one of the people who values their brain health and has fled neu-Twitter, let me introduce you to one of the foundational texts among the terminally online:
Because we are Mariners fans, this meme gets a lot of use: most recently, heavily deployed in the Leo Rivas Era, but also apropos for whatever bullpen bandaid the team is utilizing for the night.
Last night, “accidentally important at work” befell Mariners reliever Nick Davila, who was summoned from an anniversary dinner at the
Southcenter Din Tai Fung with his girlfriend at 7:45 PM to make a 10:20 flight out of Sea-Tac (IT’S SEA-TAC, FIGHT ME), and 24 hours later found himself pitching in an extra-innings game to try to protect a narrow Mariners lead and secure a victory.
Davila said, sadly, he was able to get one soup dumpling before the rest of the food was boxed up and pressed into the hands of his tearful girlfriend, left holding the remains of their two-year anniversary dinner. He came to Baltimore on a red-eye absent his personal effects, relying on a clubhouse assistant from Tacoma to drive up his game-day bag and meet him at his departure gate. He arrived in Baltimore around six a.m., got to the team hotel around eight, caught a few hours of sleep, and then took the late bus to the park, believing himself to be still on the taxi squad for the game.
Instead, 24 hours after he was supposed to be eating soup dumplings, he was suited up and in the game trying to lock down his first career save.
It’s not Nick Davila’s fault that a team designed to contend for not just the AL West but the AL crown, full stop, has instead been so injury-ridden and start-and-stop that they’re fighting tooth and nail to steal wins from down-on-their-luck clubs like the 2026 Royals or Tigers or, now, the Orioles. It’s not Davila’s fault; he was just the next available reliever selected by the claw machine of Seattle Mariners Baseball 2026, plucked by his Tacoma jersey and deposited on a major-league mound in the highest-stress situation of his career.
Let’s take a moment and roll the tape back. I first became aware of Nick Davila at spring training in 2023 – or maybe it was 2024. During spring training, I make a point to hang out on the backfields at the Peoria complex as much as I can; it’s usually my only chance every year to get an up-close look at prospects who will be playing at the complexes in the Dominican, Arizona, or in Little Rock or California. Even for running drills, players helpfully wear jerseys with their names on the back, and I try to remember the names, take notes on the plays, and store them in a little mental database to draw from during the season.
I remember Davila, bearded and maybe a little less fresh-faced than the other pitchers in his group, and remember specifically because he had come off a rough outing on the backfields and looked visibly distressed, shoulders heavy as he greeted the family who had shown up to support. I remember looking him up – a free-agent sign by the Tigers during the COVID-shortened draft year, released a few years later, leading to the Mariners scooping him up – and thinking about timing, how cruel it can be. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a fringe player come apart, wondering if he had a future in the game he loved. It will not be the last.
Davila thrummed along in my subconscious for the next few years, organizational filler in its truest sense. We had him on our list of fringe prospects to watch prior to the 2024 season, more checking off a name than an actual scouting report, and followed his performance in Seattle’s system until TJ surgery knocked out most of his 2024-25 season.
But in the spring of 2026, Davila became important to the Mariners once again, his previous background in the system earning him an invite as an NRI, and the absence of several relievers during spring training earning him opportunities to pitch in big-league games. Davila saw action in seven games this spring, often coming in to clean up messes other pitchers had made, and pitched with a steady enough hand the Mariners brought him up to make his big-league debut on May 3. Davila pitched solidly during the three-ish weeks he was with the club, maybe walking more than ideal but allowing no runs in his seven low-leverage appearances. Davila was optioned back to Tacoma May 26 when Gabe Speier was able to come off the IL, with the understanding he’d be back at some point this season; that point came sooner than expected, with stalwart tall wall Cooper Criswell placed on the IL yesterday, leading to Mr. Davila’s Wild Ride from Sea-Tac to BWI.
And then, to Oriole Park, to try to preserve a win for the Mariners in extras.
“I just couldn’t believe I was in the game,” said Davila. “It was freaking nuts. I kind of had goosebumps going out there. I was like, this is not real.”
It wasn’t pretty. It wouldn’t have ever been. Davila hit the first batter he saw, losing control of a slider and grazing Blaze Alexander (“the first one I plunked the dude. I was like, ohhh, that’s not good” said Davila postgame); Alexander then scored on a hard-hit single from former Mariner Leody Taveras, who took advantage of a hung slider. Davila continued to battle for control of his slider, one of his major weapons, but was able to get Coby Mayo to pop out on a sinker, and then got weak contact on a better slider to get Jeremiah Jackson to ground into a fielder’s choice that erased the would-be tying run at home.
That left just one more former Mariner, slugger Tyler O’Neill. Davila was still scrapping for command of his slider, but he had his sinker.
“Every single pitch I just told myself, you don’t want to be anywhere else but right here. Execute this pitch to the best of your ability, and everything I was putting into it was just that pitch. And I was like, all right. That was a good pitch, you got a strike there. Let’s get the next strike. And it was just a stepping-ladder to the next one, to the next one.
The Mariners set us up for success with the way they have us funnel. They teach you like, hey, you gotta get to this spot to have a pre-pitch funnel so you can get to your best pitch. Once I got that first pitch on the sinker and Mitch called sinker again I was like, okay. Let’s go.”
Two straight sinkers – two called strikes – put Davila in the driver’s seat in 0-2. He tried a slider, but couldn’t elicit a chase on a good pitch, and then a fastball that landed just out, before taking a moment to step off.
“I had him 0-2 but like, there’s so many guys that get one pitch away and they blow it. So I was like, I can’t get too ahead of myself, I gotta make sure I’m in the moment right here, and I did have a capture moment where I was like, I could get out of this right here.”
Davila’s “capture moment” was captured on-camera, as he gave himself a talking-to before throwing his next pitch.
Davila and Garver dialed up the sinker, again, getting some nasty armside run for a swinging strikeout to end the game. I’m not sure what Davila was saying to himself in the previous clip but I feel like it was
okay, you’re one pitch away
now let’s strike him out
Dinner: ruined. Game: saved.
If you happen to find yourself accidentally important at work, take a tip from Nick Davila: give yourself a pep talk, remind yourself of what you do well, and strike them all out.
