Well, that was more spring baseball.
The Mariners fourth Spring Training game on Monday was more of the same: weak at bats, sloppy play, and a bunch of names so unremarkable they didn’t even bother printing them on the jerseys. I still enjoyed it, though. These games might be meaningless, but they are still baseball, still something to pass the time, still a chance to see your favorite players, however briefly. Only four more weeks until the real thing. We’re getting there.
The Mariners lost to the
Dodgers 3-0. They collected just four hits and one walk. Here’s what I thought was notable.
Cole Young and Colt Emerson
Mariners’ brass got another chance to see Cole Young and Colt Emerson in direct competition for an infield spot. Young hit seventh in the lineup and played second base; Emerson hit eighth and played shortstop. Neither’s day at the plate was all that notable. Young struck out in both his plate appearances, both times against a lefty. Emerson drew a nice walk against a righty in his first at bat, then popped out against a lefty in his second.
Both made nice plays in the field. With a runner on first, Emerson got a line drive right to him at short. He dropped it intentionally and tried to turn the double play. The umpires didn’t buy it and called it a catch, but it was a nice display of awareness regardless. The game doesn’t look too big for him so far.
Young was especially impressive. In the third, he backed up first base on a ball that squirted out of Patrick Wisdom’s glove, adjusted his momentum to get to the ball, and made a nice short throw to first. Later in the inning he made a strong throw across the infield while turning a double play. In the fifth, he ranged to his right and snagged a grounder with a dive, then popped up and fired to first. These are the specific plays that really sunk Young’s value last year in the field—going to his right and making quick, unconventional throws—and its encouraging to see some improvement right out of the gate. This is the type of thing I can get excited about in Spring Training.
Logan Gilbert
Logan Gilbert made his first start of Spring Training. Like all Mariners starting pitchers, I’m interested in whether we might spy any arsenal tweaks, like new pitch types or shapes. FanGraphs’ Michael Rosen noted Gilbert was throwing what looked like a redesigned cutter. The rest of his stuff looked pretty sharp, too. His velocity was up from last year at 96+ mph, and he picked up a few strikeouts.
Gilbert’s 2025 is tough to summarize. He took a notable step forward in “stuff,” generating whiffs and strikeouts at an elite level. But it seemed to come at the expense of efficiency, as he struggled to work deeper into games. We don’t know much about how he might resolve that issue in 2026 after Monday’s outing, but we’ll see what adjustments he makes as he stretches out.
Jose Ferrer
Jose Ferrer’s time with the Mariners started out great. He got a three pitch strikeout on Andy Pages and celebrated with a little spin. It was nasty a pitch—an 85 mph changeup below the zone off back-to-back heaters up. Pages looked fooled.
Ferrer then gave up three consecutive hits and a walk and was removed from the game before recording another out. The contact he allowed wasn’t especially good and one of the hits really should have been caught by Victor Robles in right field. But Ferrer will take solace in that his performance with the Mariners can only improve from here.
Andrew Knizner
Andrew Knizner made three challenges. The first two he called correctly from behind the plate, stealing strikes for his pitchers and even ending a fourth inning jam with a challenge K. He also challenged a high strike as a batter and lost. It’s interesting to see the Mariners’ catchers testing out the new system early on.
