Andrés Muñoz's injury update sounds like one last crisis for Mariners' lost season

It really is as if this whole season has been some kind of experiment involving the Seattle Mariners not being able to have nice things. It was bad enough that Andrés Muñoz was merely a malfunctioning closer. And now, you wonder if he's thrown his last pitch of 2026.

His appearance on Sunday against the Colorado Rockies was, rather unfortunately, shaping up to be a typical 2026 Andrés Muñoz experience. He was brought on in the ninth to protect a 2-0 lead, but put it in jeopardy by allowing a one-out home run to Hunter Goodman and then a walk to TJ Rumfield. It was on ball four of the latter when the twist occurred, and seemingly not just figuratively.

Muñoz felt something in his right knee on the pitch, and was in enough discomfort that he had to come out of the game.

Since any and all silver linings are welcome at this point, at least Eduard Bazardo was able to come in and get his first career save. He needed a win like that, and the actual 2-1 win allowed the Mariners to keep their tragic number for playoff elimination at 2. Not dead yet, folks!

As for Muñoz, he's headed for imaging on his right knee on Monday. Until those results come out, we just have this ominous quote from Dan Wilson: “I think it’s been an issue here and there, but something that just popped up big time today."

The hope now is that Andrés Muñoz's knee injury doesn't have any 2027 implications

When it comes to knees, any combination of "something," "popped" and "big time" is never good. And if there's a worse circumstance to hear such a sequence of words, it's in context of knowledge that said knee had previously been an issue.

Without getting deep into speculation about what could be wrong with Muñoz, we'll settle for putting it this way: We really hope he's OK.

If he must merely be shut down for the remainder of 2026, so be it. FanGraphs has the Mariners' chances of rallying to make the playoffs at 0.1 percent, so this isn't so much the final nail in the Mariners' coffin. At this point, the baseball gods just keep driving down nails as if to literally hammer home the point.

The real hope worth having is that Muñoz's knee injury isn't too serious. As in, a "needs surgery" kind of serious. Because then we're talking about a potential compromise for next season, and the headwinds coming from that direction are strong enough already. To wit, the Mariners have a major bullpen project to undertake even if Muñoz is a healthy member in good standing.

So, cross those fingers. This hasn't been Muñoz's best season, but the last thing anyone needs is this already bad news getting worse.

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