Colt Emerson’s arrival not enough to help Mariners prevent sweep against Padres

SEATTLE – If they stay true to their contradictory performance patterns of the first 48 games of the 2026 season – play well for a week, play poorly the following week, play better and win a series, play worse and lose a series – you can expect the Mariners to look and play like the high-level, postseason-caliber team over the next three days against the Chicago White Sox, who are coming off a sweep of the Chicago Cubs.

Realistically, they can’t play much worse than they did over the weekend while getting swept by the San Diego Padres. So some sort of improvement must be ahead.

With a large crowd of 40,365 packing T-Mobile Park for a sunny if not warm early evening start time, a national TV audience watching on NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball and top prospect Colt Emerson making his MLB debut, it seemed like a good environment for the Mariners to salvage at least one victory in the season series against their “natural” rivals.

Instead, they slogged their way through a disappointing 8-3 loss.

San Diego swept the season series vs. the Mariners, going 6-0 in the oft-promoted and manufactured matchup rivalry called the Vedder Cup. Eddie Vedder, the Pearl Jam frontman who is actually a Cubs fan, couldn’t write a song sad enough to describe the Mariners’ performance in the two three-game series.

Seattle fell to 22-26 and seems to be treading water in a pool mixed with mediocrity and inconsistency.

“A tough day, tough series,” manager Dan Wilson said. “We’re gonna have to turn the page quickly on this one.”

How tough was it? The Mariners were held to one hit in the game – a second-inning single from Luke Raley.

The three runs they scored came after they were down 7-0 and were largely a product of the Padres’ inability to throw strikes in the bottom of the sixth.

Veteran right-hander Lucas Giolito, who signed in late April and was making his first start of the season, started to tire after five scoreless frames and walked the first three batters he faced.

The Padres brought in reliever Yuki Matsui, who walked Josh Naylor to force in Seattle’s first run of the game. Randy Arozarena and Rob Refsnyder followed with sac flies to drive in runs.

George Kirby, who had been one of Seattle’s most consistent starting pitchers this season, gave up a season-high six runs in 52/3 innings pitched, including four in the seminal sixth inning that he couldn’t finish.

It was just the third time he’s given up more than two runs in 10 starts this season.

“A couple of his pitches found some plate and they were able to do some damage on him,” Wilson said of Kirby.

Kirby pitched well enough over the first five innings while his teammates showed no signs of providing him with any run support. He gave up a solo homer to Gavin Sheets in the first inning on a first-pitch fastball and allowed an RBI single to old friend Ty France with two outs in the fifth.

But he seemed en route to another quality start until his outing imploded in the sixth. With one out, he allowed a one-out double to Miguel Andujar and then left a change-up in the middle of the plate to Sheets, who deposited it in the right -field stands for his second homer of the game.

“That pitch, I’ve had some good work with it,” Kirby said . “I thought I just had to do a little too much with it against Sheets.”

Clearly irked at himself, Kirby gave up a double to Manny Machado, struck out Xander Bogaerts and allowed a run-scoring double to Jackson Merrill that ended his outing.

“It was a lack of execution tonight,” Kirby said. “I felt great, but I tried to do too much in certain situations. I’ve just got to make sure I’m in control and committed to my stuff, and not really worrying about everything else that’s going on.”

Sheets reached base in all five plate appearances in the game, adding an RBI double off Alex Hoppe in the seventh to go with a pair of walks. In the six-game series, he was 9-for-18 for a .500 batting average along with a .640 on-base percentage, three doubles, three homers, five RBI, six runs scored, five walks and four strikeouts.

Emerson gets his call-up

With Brendan Donovan out of the starting lineup for the second straight game and struggling to play on a daily basis due to complications from offseason surgery for a sports hernia, Seattle’s front office needed to find a more viable option than continually starting utility player Leo Rivas at third base.

The Mariners decided to turn to Emerson, their top prospect and one of the top prospects in MLB, to fill the starting third base job, while placing Donovan on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to Saturday) with a left groin muscle strain.

The decision to place Donovan on the injured list and call up Emerson was made shortly after manager Dan Wilson met with the local media for his normal pregame session, as well as production meetings with the ESPN Radio announcers and the NBC broadcast team.

“This wasn’t on my bingo card this morning,” general manager Justin Hollander said. “I didn’t know that (Donovan) was going to be (placed on the) IL.”

Fans have been anxiously awaiting Emerson’s call-up, believing an infusion of youthful energy and athleticism was needed.

Emerson was scratched from the Tacoma Rainers lineup and made the quick trip to Seattle to play against the Padres. He replaced Rivas at third base and batted ninth.

Emerson faired about as well as any of Seattle’s hitters on Sunday, working three deep counts, making solid contact on two flyouts to right field and earning a walk – where he came around to score one of the Mariners’ three runs.

The Mariners plan to play Emerson on a daily basis.

“I don’t want to write the lineup out for Dan,” Hollander said. “My guess is he’ll play primarily third base. It’s certainly not going to be in a true platoon or anything like that, whether it’s every day or not, we’ll still find ways to get him a day off his feet. But this also allows us to maybe get Crawford off his feet occasionally, so there’ll be an occasional day at shortstop for Colt as well.”

Donovan is expected to be out far longer than the 10-day minimum for an IL stint. He had recently returned from the injured list on the previous road trip. But he re-strained the groin during the series finale in Houston after almost hitting for the cycle. Donovan did pinch-hit in Friday’s loss but was scratched from Saturday’s game with continued discomfort.

When Donovan returns, he will likely move into more of a utility role where he plays all over the field and also sees time at designated hitter.

Emerson, who doesn’t turn 21 until July 20, has played in 38 games for Triple-A Tacoma this season, posting a .255/.347/.469 slash line with eight doubles, a triple, seven homers, 26 RBIs, 10 stolen bases, 17 walks and 46 strikeouts in 169 plate appearances.

Over his last 15 games, he’s posted a .286/.343/.524 slash line with a double, a triple, four homers, 17 RBIs, four walks and 21 strikeouts in 71 plate appearances.