Mariners 'running out of time' in playoff push

TORONTO -- It was a new rock bottom, but now with less than a month to climb out of it.

After a 7-0 loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday afternoon that capped a weekend sweep, the Mariners are reaching a point of reckoning, if they weren’t there already.

“We're not getting it done right now,” manager Dan Wilson said. “We all need to be better.”

This weekend was supposed to be about building momentum off a productive homestand, to exorcise the demons in this building after last year’s American League Championship Series and to remain within striking distance in an AL West that’s shaping up to be the sport’s most pedestrian of this era.

Instead, everything fell flat.

The Mariners were outscored, 19-4, to see their overall run differential tumble to -72. They made a costly mental mistake in Saturday’s 4-3 loss. They saw one of their most consistent starting pitchers (Emerson Hancock) placed on the 15-day injured list and their other (Logan Gilbert) grind through Sunday’s finale, trying to play a futile game of catch-up.

“We've got to do a better job,” said Gilbert, who surrendered three earned runs over five innings. “It's disappointing and frustrating. I felt like we had some momentum there, and saw that we could play with some good teams. And then we come out here, and this happens.

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“We've got to turn it around. We still have games in front of us, but we know the situation. We're running out of time.”

The Mariners (64-73) are now nine games under .500 with just 25 to play. They'll need to go 17-9 just to finish with a .500 record, which would probably be enough in an extremely weak division. However, they did fall to five games back of first place after the Astros’ defeated the Mets on Sunday.

Their odds to claim their second straight AL West crown, per FanGraphs, tumbled to 20.0% -- a new season-low.

“We just want to win ball games, at the end of the day, especially at this time of the year,” said Julio Rodríguez. “And we wish it would have gone differently for us here, but we've got a series to look ahead in Boston.”

Indeed, next up is a three-game series at Fenway Park beginning Monday -- against a Red Sox team that took a 16-1 loss at Yankee Stadium on Sunday but is still an MLB-best 28-15 since the All-Star break.

Boston has a five-game cushion on the second AL Wild Card spot and is in the driver’s seat to reach October, meaning the Mariners' East Coast road trip won’t get any easier.

Seattle was shut out for the 13th time on Sunday and added just one hit -- a double from Cal Raleigh in the fourth that nicked the top of the right-field wall, but stayed in the yard.

They were stymied by a vintage outing from Max Scherzer, who twirled seven innings (for the first time since Aug. 14, 2025) and struck out 10 (for the first time since July 27, 2025).

In the process, Scherzer passed Gaylord Perry for ninth on the all-time strikeouts list. The 42-year-old has battled through forearm, ankle, back and thumb issues this season, but looked like his former “Mad Max” self on Sunday.

“Scherzer was just hard and soft all day long,” Wilson said. “And we just weren't able to get anything going. But the bottom line is, we need -- all of us need -- to be better.”

In the aftermath of the latest stinging afternoon in a season full of them, Wilson showed more vocal frustration than he’s exhibited at any point this season.

But will it translate?

“We've got to find a way,” Wilson said. “I think, again, it's just where we are. It's where we are in the season, where we are in this year, and we've got to find a way. I think our guys know how to do it, and it's just a matter of us, like I said, all of us getting better and doing it.”