SEATTLE -- On the day that the Mariners retired Randy Johnson’s No. 51, Emerson Hancock channeled his inner Big Unit in the biggest way possible.
But a career-high 14 strikeouts was brutally blundered by one gaffe after another -- on the basepaths and in the field -- in a 3-2 loss to the Royals in 10 innings on Saturday night.
And it left Hancock in a perplexing state of both self accomplishment and disappointment on behalf of the team.
“Things happen,” Hancock said. “It's just the game. The good thing is, we've got another day tomorrow.”
In front of a frenzied T-Mobile Park eager to turn the clock back to Johnson’s heyday, Hancock gave the crowd precisely what they sought over seven dominant innings -- including The Big Unit, who was seen in a suite cheering him on.
The 14-K benchmark had been reached only 33 times in franchise history before Saturday, but by only six pitchers -- Félix Hernández, Mark Langston, Mike Moore, James Paxton, George Kirby, and of course, Johnson himself, who did so a whopping 22 times.
Hancock now leads the 2026 club with 46 K's, and he lowered his ERA to a team-best 2.59. With Bryce Miller’s return from the injured list looming, Hancock’s status in the Mariners’ rotation already seemed locked up. But after Saturday, it’s a certainty.
However, it was after he departed where calamity ensued.
Staked to a 2-1 lead in the ninth, Andrés Muñoz blew his third save, issuing a balk after a leadoff single that put the eventual tying run in scoring position.
Then came the wildly uncharacteristic error from Julio Rodríguez, who had a scorching-but-playable liner from Jac Caglianone go through his legs and all the way to the wall, scoring that run and eliminating the chance at Hancock earning a win as the pitcher of record.
Seattle’s bats then went 1-2-3 in their first walk-off attempt to send the game to extras, where Mitch Garver was goaded into a costly pickoff attempt. Garver was a last-minute fill-in for Cal Raleigh, who was scratched with what Mariners manager Dan Wilson described as “general soreness” -- but enough to undergo imaging.
Because Garver’s pickoff was to second base attempting to get him going back, Royals second baseman Michael Massey instead took off for third and reached with no ensuing throw from J.P. Crawford. Massey then scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly from Maikel Garcia -- an opportunity that never would’ve been there had he remained on second.
“Any time in a close ballgame like it was tonight it can be a little thing that can go one way or the other and send the game in a different direction,” Wilson said. “And it happened to us tonight.”
But the most glaring blunder took place before Hancock departed, in the fifth, when Randy Arozarena lost track of the count, took off for second base on a presumed walk but then had nowhere to go because the sacks were packed.
The count was actually 2-2 and not 3-2. And although Arozarena bumped into Massey in a pickle then attempted to argue obstruction -- as did Wilson -- it was to no avail.
Who knows what would’ve actually happened. After all, there were two outs and Royals starter Seth Lugo would’ve still been just one strike away from escaping. But the batter in the box was team RBI leader Cole Young, who’s delivered in multiple high-stakes at-bats over the past week alone.
“That helped me out pretty good,” Lugo said. “Young was battling me all day. I think he’d seen every pitch I throw. He probably saw the most pitches of anyone in the lineup.”
Johnson wasn’t the only icon in the house whose history was eerily channeled. So, too, was Hernández, who attended the ceremony and whose career was defined by a lack of run support.
On the night The King was inducted into the Mariners’ Hall of Fame, in 2023, Kirby suffered a similar fate to Hancock -- twirling nine shutout innings in a 1-0 loss to the Orioles, also in the 10th inning.
As for Hancock, the Mariners have now lost three of his five quality starts this season.
“It was an honor to pitch on a night like this,” Hancock said, “because the experience of it is, you're trying to get ready for a game. But I also kind of caught myself looking at the [scoreboard] and seeing the messages that people were sending in.”