SEATTLE – The Seattle Mariners have one of the best and most dynamic offenses in Major League Baseball.
(Let’s repeat that in case you were worried you picked up a newspaper from 1996: The Seattle Mariners have one of the best and most dynamic offenses in Major League Baseball.)
Yes, it’s 2025 and the Mariners are mashing – finally and convincingly.
“It’s hard to imagine it going any better than it’s gone,” Jerry Dipoto, the president of baseball operations, said Thursday. “It’s amazing what can happen when a group of players come together and believe in the team. And I think that’s what we’re watching. It sounds like a movie or something, but that’s the way it’s playing.”
At 22-14, the Mariners are off to their best 36-game start since 2003. They have baseball’s best record over the past month, and they begin a six-game homestand – starting Friday against the Toronto Blue Jays – having won nine straight series, their longest such streak since winning 15 straight series in 2001.
The New York Yankees come to town Monday, and among all MLB clubs, only the Yankees (129) have a higher wRC+ (a metric that measures how hitters perform relative to league average) than the Mariners’ 124, an indication of just how dramatic Seattle’s offensive resurgence has been.
Home runs have been a big part of it, certainly. Among American League clubs, only the Yankees (62) have hit more homers than the Mariners (51).
Mostly, though, it hasn’t been one thing or one player fanning the Mariners’ hot start.
“It’s just a little bit of everything,” catcher Cal Raleigh said. “We’re taking walks, grinding out at-bats, taking our hits through the middle of (the) field and other ways. It’s not the sexiest, but, you know, that’s kind of how baseball is.”
And that’s why Dipoto is optimistic this brand of offense is sustainable. This, he said, is the most “complete” position player group the Mariners have fielded during his 10 years leading baseball ops.
“The thing I’m most pleased with is that it’s seemingly a different guy every inning – somebody’s doing something to contribute,” Dipoto said. ” … And when your bangers are banging and when everybody is taking their walks, and you have five or six guys in the lineup on any given day that can run – golly, it just gives you so many different ways that you can create runs, that you can create offense.”
He pointed specifically to the production from the bottom of the Mariners’ lineup. Whether in full-time or platoon roles, the likes of Miles Mastrobuoni, Leo Rivas and Ben Williamson have proved vital, particularly in the wake of long-term injuries to three starters (Luke Raley, Victor Robles, Ryan Bliss) from the opening-day lineup.
“It’s hard for me to believe that anybody in the league is getting more productivity (from) 7 through 9 in their order,” Dipoto said.
The Mariners have been winning without the starting pitching dominance they’ve come to rely on in recent years. Dipoto said he remains hopeful that George Kirby (shoulder inflammation) and Logan Gilbert (elbow flexor tendon strain) can return to the rotation in the next month or so.
Of course, it helps having Raleigh tied for the league lead in homers (12); having Jorge Polanco and J.P. Crawford playing like All-Stars; and having Randy Arozarena as one of the most “clutch” hitters in the league early on.
Julio Rodríguez, meanwhile, has shown encouraging signs over the past couple of weeks that he’s nearing a breakthrough at the plate, perhaps earlier than his usual midsummer surge.
“He’s remained aggressive … and his contact rate has really soared in the past week or so,” Dipoto said. “I think it’s just his mentality of staying on the fastball, and that’s helping him better identify the breaking ball, especially the breaking ball that’s going to be off (the plate). And when Julio, historically, has gotten into slumps, it’s generally been chasing the breaking ball off. And right now, he’s not doing that.”
Rodríguez has grown close with Edgar Martinez, the Mariners’ senior director of hitting strategy. And the overall messaging from Martinez and manager Dan Wilson – and new hitting coaches Kevin Seitzer and Bobby Magallanes – has created stability and confidence in the lineup.
The Mariners’ .340 on-base percentage ranks second in MLB (behind the Yankees’ .342), and they’re averaging 5.1 runs per game – up a full run (4.1) from their 2024 average. They’ve also cut down on their strikeout rate significantly, from 26.8% last year to 21.6% now (league average this season: 21.9%).
“I think our players, they believed in this from the day we stepped foot in spring training,” Dipoto said. “And that sounds cliché, but that’s half the battle – just believing that you can.”
That belief is evident in the Mariners’ 11 comeback victories, tied for the most in the AL. Their three ninth-inning, come-from-behind wins are the most in MLB.
Their biggest comeback yet came Wednesday against the Athletics, when the M’s rallied from a five-run deficit in a 6-5 victory.
Rowdy Tellez hit a three-run homer and Leody Taveras, in his first game with the Mariners, drove in the tying run in the eighth inning with a two-strike single the other way.
He then scored the go-ahead run on a double from Dylan Moore, who’s off to the best start of his career.
“It’s almost like a broken record,” Wilson said, “just how well these guys keep fighting and come back.”
Now they just have to keep it going.