Andrés Muñoz's meltdown vs. Padres has Mariners' panic meter creeping up

Nothing brings on that gut-sinking feeling quite like a normally automatic closer suddenly coming undone. And it hits especially hard when said automatic closer blows a four-run lead, as Andrés Muñoz did on Wednesday in truly hard-to-watch fashion.

For an idea of just how wrong things went for the Mariners during the ninth inning of last night's 7-6 loss to the Padres, it began with a win probability of 98 percent. Even in a non-save situation, Muñoz being on the mound hypothetically pushed it closer to 100 percent.

So, how the heck did he only get two outs amid a five-run Padres barrage that culminated in Jackson Merrilll's walk-off double?

We might as well start with the excuses. Muñoz was mostly the victim of terrible luck on the four hits he gave up, which is apparent just in their exit velocities:

• Gavin Sheets' double: 55.5 mph
• Ty France's single: 74.9 mph
• Luis Campusano's single: 102.2 mph
• Ramón Laureano's single: 67.9

The threshold for a hard-hit ball is 95 mph. Three of the four hits off Muñoz not only fell short of that, but did so by over 20 mph. That's the magic of location, location, location on batted balls.

That said, the whole point of having a closer like Muñoz is that there aren't supposed to be batted balls. His main function is to strike batters out. And to this end, that he only had one strikeout last night points to the more self-inflicted cause of his and the Mariners' demise.

The quality of Andrés Muñoz's stuff isn't the problem, but also not the story

This early in the season, the 27-year-old Muñoz obviously still deserves the benefit of the doubt. This is a two-time All-Star we're talking about, and one with a 1.92 ERA to show for the last two seasons.

Given how he finished 2025, we did have a little suspicion coming into 2026 as to whether Muñoz was primed for regression. But our fears are thankfully not showing up in the quality of his stuff. His average fastball is up 0.3 mph to 98.7 mph, and his 43.1 Whiff% is in the 98th percentile.

At a certain point, though, even nasty pitches aren't good for much if they aren't competitively located. And to this end, that Muñoz has walked 10 of the 33 batters he's faced (including one last night) is hardly a mirage.

He's only throwing 36.1 percent of his pitches in the strike zone, the third-lowest mark among all pitchers with at least five innings early on. Worse, 18.8 percent of his misses have been in the "Waste" portion of the zone, almost twice the rate at which he hit it last season. That's not effective wildness. That's just wildness.

It's therefore another silver lining that hitters are 0-for-7 when ahead in the count against Muñoz, compared to 3-for-8 when behind in the count. But given how these things usually work, he shouldn't want to turn this into an experiment on sustainability.

Instead, he just plain needs to pitch better. Because this is already two losses on Muñoz's ledger for 2026, and there's obviously a lot of baseball still left to be played.

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