The mistake pitches he left in the middle of the zone were hammered. The pitches on the edges of the strike zone that generated weak contact still ended up being hits. And the pitches out of the zone weren’t close enough to entice a swing or even get a cheap called strike.
In his first start of the 2025 season, Emerson Hancock found himself in a place few pitchers want to be — doing everything he could to not get pulled in the first inning.
But the avalanche of hits, base runners and eventual runs scored from the Detroit Tigers made that an impossibility.
When Javier Baez, the No. 9 hitter in the Tigers’ lineup, scalded a ball off the wall in left-center for a double that scored the fifth and sixth runs of the top of the first, it ended his outing with an out still needed to end the misery and torpedoed any realistic hope of a victory for the Mariners.
Even with their best offensive showing in this young season, which wasn’t a difficult status to achieve, the Mariners couldn’t overcome that early six-run deficit or keep Detroit from adding to its lead, losing 9-6 in Monday’s opener of a three-game series.
“Emerson had a tough time getting through that first inning, but really proud of how our guys fought all the way to the end,” manager Dan Wilson said. “We kept pressure on them. It was just a tough, tough first inning for us, but the guys really, really battled back and gave them all they could handle, all the way to the end.”
It was a familiar outcome. Last season, the Tigers won five of six games over the Mariners in the season series, using that success to help push them into the playoffs while seriously crushing any postseason hopes the Mariners might have maintained.
“Super frustrated just because, I didn’t do my part in helping us get a win,” Hancock said. “I kind of put us in too big of a hole early on, and I just didn’t give us a chance at all. I’ve got to execute better. I have to find a way to get out of that inning, I didn’t do my job.”
With George Kirby working his way back from early shoulder fatigue in spring training, Hancock made the opening-day rotation as an injury replacement for the second straight year.
Last season, he filled in when Bryan Woo was dealing with some forearm tightness. As the sixth starter in an organization with elite starting pitching, Hancock has tried to embrace the role and show he’s as good as the pitchers ahead of him and effective when needed. It’s a responsibility he’s proven he can handle with some level of success.
But it wasn’t happening against a Tigers lineup that has devoured Mariners pitching in the past.
Justyn-Henry Malloy led off the game with a double to right-center and scored on Kerry Carpenter’s hard single to right field for a 1-0 lead.
Carpenter even gifted the Mariners an early out, leaving so early on a stolen base attempt that Hancock was able to step off the rubber and fire to second for J.P. Crawford to tag him out.
Carpenter’s mistake cost the Tigers an extra run when Riley Greene crushed a solo homer to left that made it 2-0.
Spencer Torkelson followed with an infield single and Colt Keith worked a walk. When Hancock got Zach McKinstry to fly out to left for the second out, it looked as if the Mariners might escape any serious damage.
But Dillon Dingler dumped a soft single into left field that scored a run and Trey Sweeney looped a soft single to center that scored another run, bringing Baez to the plate.
“It’s just baseball sometimes,” Hancock said of the bad luck. “That’s the way it goes. It’s always little bit here, a little bit there, but at the end of the day, I feel like maybe I could execute a little bit better, maybe you can get a whiff in a certain situation and try to get out of it.”
Wilson hasn’t lost any confidence in Hancock after one start.
“I know he’ll be able to bounce back from that,” Wilson said. “He will. He’ll go back to the things that he has done well and that gave him success down in the spring, and he’ll be back.
Lefty Tayler Saucedo entered to face the top of the lineup after Hancock surrendered the two-run double to Baez. He was able to end the inning without any more runs scoring.
Detroit had 11 hitters come to the plate, tallying seven hits and working two walks en route to six runs.
Down 6-0 before they’d even gotten a plate appearance was less than ideal for Seattle. Facing rookie Jackson Jobe, who was making his first MLB start, the Mariners were able to pick up a run in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings. Randy Arozarena hit his second homer of the season — a solo blast in the second. Julio Rodriguez drove in another run with a fielder’s choice in the third and Luke Raley hit a solo homer in the fourth. In the fifth, Rodriguez led off with a triple and scored on Jorge Polanco’s single to right field.
Down 9-4 in the ninth, Cal Raleigh hit a two-run homer to cut the lead to three.
“We did hit some balls hard and we’re able to push this to the end,” Wilson said. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow, keep this offense rolling.”
It wasn’t close to enough with the Tigers picking up add-on runs in three different innings. Forced to cover 8 1/3 innings, Saucedo, Collin Snider, Carlos Vargas and Eduard Bazardo combined to allow three runs on 11 hits with three walks and five strikeouts.
“They did a really nice job pitching in arts of the game, they’re not usually, used to pitching in,” Wilson said. “They stepped up and gave us a lot of innings. Really nice job from them.”
The Mariners needed more from their seven hits in the game, particularly when they worked six walks and chased Jobe after four innings.
But the concerning early trend of ineffective production with runners in scoring position continued.
Over the four-game series with the A’s, the Mariners went 2-for-19 with two singles, two RBI, a walk, a hit by pitch and seven strikeouts in 23 plate appearances with runners in scoring position and 25 runners left on base.
Seattle finished 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranding eight runners on base.
