SEATTLE — They began as murmurs on Saturday night, a chorus of frustration that was faint at first but grew louder with each passing inning.
And by the end of the Mariners’ 6-2 loss to the A’s, the boos from the ticketed 40,950 at T-Mobile Park had reached an impossible-to-ignore pitch.
This season, which Seattle entered with arguably the highest expectations in franchise history, is slipping away. And as this weekend has underscored, it’s happening in inexplicable fashion as the finish line looms just three weeks from now.
“We’ve just got to figure it out, pull our heads out of you-know-where,” said George Kirby, who surrendered four runs (three earned) over 6 2/3 innings but received zero runs of support.
The Mariners have now lost each of the first three games of this series and are one defeat away from the rare four-game sweep — which would be their first at home since Aug. 10-13, 2017, to the Angels.
Moreover, they fell to a season-high 11 games below .500 (66-77) — a low mark they hadn’t dropped to since Aug. 20, 2020, when they were 8-19 in the 60-game season that was impacted by the pandemic.
The most recent time they were this far under .500 in a full season was on the final day of 2019, the first year of their rebuild, when they finished 68-94.
“It’s frustrating, of course, and I think we all feel that,” manager Dan Wilson said. “But that’s not going to stop us from continuing to work and continuing to prepare. And we’ve got to come back tomorrow and get ready to play.”
Making this weekend more maddening for the home fans is that the Mariners’ opponent isn’t some American League powerhouse — is there even one this season? — but rather, a team whose 57-86 record is third worst in the sport.
It’s also one that’s been battered by injuries, down six key cogs to a lineup that has upside at full strength and most of which were still healthy when these teams last met from May 25-27 in West Sacramento.
That series, which the Mariners swept as part of their season-best eight-game win streak, feels like eons ago. It was also when they claimed first place in the AL West and looked like they’d never look back.
“Losing is never fun,” Kirby said. “Especially with just the talent in this room. … We’ve just got to compete until the end, and that’s our focus.”
Kirby wasn’t exactly a “stopper” on Saturday — but he didn’t lose the game, either.
No, those shortcomings came from the Mariners’ offense, which was held to just two hits, both singles from Cal Raleigh, across its first 27 batters.
The lineup finally sparked life with two outs in the eighth to avoid what would’ve been the Mariners’ 15th shutout, when Dominic Canzone punched an RBI single up the middle. But immediately after, Julio Rodríguez hit a first-pitch groundout that quashed any chance at a longshot rally.
Up to that point, Seattle was stymied by one of the sport’s most struggling starting pitchers in 2026 — left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who hadn’t earned a win in his past 21 starts and entered play with a 6.37 ERA (70 ERA+, where league average is 100).
But on Saturday, he looked like Clayton Kershaw — who was the opposing pitcher against the Mariners the last time they fell to 11 games under .500 on that day in 2020.
Springs cleared the seventh inning on just 81 pitches, with six strikeouts despite only eight whiffs for the entire outing.
In his final frame, Springs worked around a leadoff single from Raleigh by inducing a double play from Josh Naylor, who was slow out of the box and then out by a step after A’s second baseman Donovan Walton bobbled the ball.
Wilson was then asked about that play postgame.
“I was watching the ball,” Wilson said. “I didn’t see what happened, but, obviously, these guys know what it means to play hard, and that’s what needs to happen.”
He was also asked if he felt the team lacked energy.
“It always feels that way when you can’t get much going offensively,” Wilson said. “But I think it was Springs just was pitching us tough, and we weren’t able to make the adjustments we needed to.”
In a stretch where the Mariners have regularly found a new rock bottom, Saturday was the latest such example — with not just the look, but also the feel.