Mariners' bullpen keeping team afloat during during tough stretch

SEATTLE -- Matt Brash’s franchise-best scoreless streak was bound to end eventually. But the way that the Mariners’ high-leverage reliever rebounded from surrendering his first run of the season on Wednesday night was arguably more telling to his emphatic return from Tommy John surgery in 2025.

Brash worked around that lone run in a tense eighth inning by escaping a subsequent one-out jam with two runners on, which helped Seattle hang on to a 3-2 victory over Kansas City at T-Mobile Park. That came after the club’s offense broke through late -- and on a night when AL All-Star starting catcher Cal Raleigh had a scheduled off-day and missed only his second game of the season.

“I'll say, I'm not the happiest guy right now, but we got the win, and that's all that matters at the end of the day,” Brash said. “And I'll flush it the next day. But yeah, I feel like I've just come a long way as a person and truly just enjoy the game.”

Brash was the third man up among a quartet of relievers that put together one of the Mariners’ more gritty bullpen efforts of late -- especially when considering that the club is 13 games into a 17-game stretch with no off-days.

• Gabe Speier was the first man up, called upon with two outs in the fifth inning after another outing from Logan Gilbert that featured plenty of swing-and-miss stuff but a lack of longevity. Speier escaped that jam with runners on first and second base, then went 1-2-3 in the sixth, with the Mariners still trailing.

• Carlos Vargas, who’s blossomed into a leverage role, worked around a two-out walk for a scoreless seventh, showing while topping out at 99.2 mph. He preserved a 1-1 tie that allowed for Seattle’s late rally.

• Brash surrendered a leadoff single to Bobby Witt Jr. on a knuckle curve way out of the zone then saw the speedster score after two singles and a flyout. It halted a franchise-best streak of 19 straight scoreless outings that also represented MLB’s longest active streak, but he zeroed in to retire Jac Caglianone on a nasty changeup for a strikeout -- the pitch he installed this season -- and a groundout to Drew Waters to avert the crisis.

• Andrés Muñoz worked around a 3-0 count to his second batter to record a perfect ninth and lock down his 19th save, as he continues to bolster his case for a second straight All-Star bid.

“Velocity, and their sliders and everything,” Witt said of Seattle’s bullpen. “When those guys come in, you’ve got to scratch and fight.”

The Mariners’ bullpen has logged 50 1/3 innings since this 17-game stretch began on June 20, MLB’s seventh-highest workload in that span, while also recording a 2.86 ERA, the sixth best, and holding hitters to a .612 OPS, fifth best. They also had to work through extra innings in each of their three games over the weekend in Texas.

Conversely, Mariners starters have a 5.01 ERA (seventh worst) and a .791 OPS against (sixth worst).

Gilbert didn’t necessarily have a bad outing, but after leading MLB with 208 2/3 innings as an All-Star last season, he’s still seeking longevity, as he’s accumulated just 50 1/3 innings over 10 starts this season. Granted, one of those outings was cut short by a right elbow flexor strain that landed him on the IL for the first time in his career, then he was monitored closely after being activated on June 16.

“It's so easy to get frustrated, especially with my standards,” Gilbert said, “so I have to be careful and try to just look at the positives.”

Amid the rotation’s ups and downs after being arguably the sport’s best in 2024, rookie Logan Evans will be recalled for Thursday’s series finale, the trickle down from Emerson Hancock being optioned to Triple-A Tacoma after Wednesday’s uneven start.

For the Mariners to get to where they want to go, they need that group peaking in the second half. But at least for now, the bullpen is keeping the staff afloat.