Mariners' offense shows life in another loss to Yankees

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Aug 12, 2026

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Roughly 24 hours earlier, the Mariners felt the effects of not being able to use lefty Gabe Speier to pitch in a leverage situation.

With their best lefty reliever unavailable due to back tightness, manager Dan Wilson had to try and navigate a series of left-handed hitters with middle reliever Michael Rucker while protecting a 1-0 lead

It did not go well. The lead and the game were eventually lost. Fans were apoplectic at Wilson’s bullpen management even after revealed Speier was unavailable.

On Wednesday night with Yankee Stadium loud from cheering, Speier came jogging in from the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh of a tie game, ready to face a run of left-handed hitters.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t finish what he started, giving up three runs while recording only two outs.

Even in a game where the Mariners’ offense was more productive than it had been in weeks, the deficit, a three-run deficit, which later ballooned to five runs, was too much to overcome.

With their 10-5 loss to the Yankees, the Mariners have now dropped six in a row and will try to avoid being swept in back-to-back series, sending Logan Gilbert to the mound on Thursday afternoon. The Yankees will counter with talented lefty Max Fried.

Speier, who last pitched a week ago on Aug. 5 due to a two-game suspension followed by the back issue, didn’t look sharp. He retired Austin Wells on a fly ball to left, but gave up a single to George Lombard Jr. and a double to the gap in right-center Trent Grisham. Ben Rice followed with hard ground ball that hit off the mound and bounced over Colt Emerson’s glove to score Grisham.

Speier came back to strike out Luis Garcia Jr. Instead of going to Seranthony Dominguez out of the bullpen, the Mariners opted to walk Heliot Ramos to have Speier face lefty Jazz Chisholm. Speier walked the free-swinging Chisholm to force in another run.

Seattle got an uneven start from Bryce Miller, who worked six innings, allowing five runs on eight hits with a walk and five strikeouts.

His teammates staked him with more run support than expected.

The Mariners jumped on Yankees starter Will Warren early on homers from Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodríguez in the first inning.

Arozarena, who homered for the second straight day, sent a fly ball into the right-field corner with Cole Young on first base for a 2-0 lead.

Two batters later, Rodríguez launched an opposite-field blast into the upper deck in right field for his 19th homer of the season.

The Mariners gave a run back in the bottom of the second, aided by the first of two poor throws that missed the cutoff man, allowing a runner to score.

Dom Canzone, who had the first of those two throws, got the run right back with a solo homer into the upper deck in the third inning.

But Miller couldn’t come back with a shutdown bottom half of the inning, giving up a leadoff double to Austin Wells, walking Rice and then giving up a double to Spencer Jones. The line drive to left field got past Arozarena, who then missed the cutoff man, turning a run-scoring double into a two-run double.

Seattle took its last lead, 5-3, in the fifth on Josh Naylor’s run-scoring single to center to make it 5-3.

But again, Miller allowed runs after getting runs. Grisham hit a solo homer just over the wall in right on a soft fly ball. Rice and Jones followed with back-to-back doubles to tie the game at 5-5.