Brewers, baseball gods send message that Mariners don't belong in playoff race

The Seattle Mariners have had Oliver Twist-like moments this year when they've been able to help themselves to just a little bit of momentum. But every time they kindly ask for more, they just keep getting turned away by the baseball gods. Maybe it was just a matter of time before they told the Mariners to get lost.

So, here we are with a postmortem of Seattle's 22-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday. It's an embarrassing loss if there ever was one, and it sure feels like a point of no return in a 2026 season that has been going downhill for a long time.

This was the biggest shutout by a home team in 141 years, and thus yet another nice feather in the cap of a Brewers squad that holds MLB's best record. The words "tough one" invariably escaped Dan Wilson's mouth, which comes across as him leaning into a bit. Beyond the 22 runs, the Mariners also allowed 22 hits, issued five walks and committed four errors.

This was a dumpster fire in a train wreck, with a side of quit. We're not specifically talking about Julio Rodríguez, but we're not not talking about him either.

The only defense of the Mariners is that they fell victim to some bush league nonsense on the part of the Brewers.

Jake Bauers should have been called for interference when he slapped the ball out of Cal Raleigh's mitt while scoring in the first inning. There was also some blatant stat-padding going on as Brewers hitters were swinging for the fences against Leo Rivas, ultimately scoring their last nine runs off a guy who is normally a light-hitting utility player. As punishment, one can't help but wonder if Logan Gilbert will be playing some chin music on Wednesday.

OK, rant over. Because when it comes down to it, the Mariners simply got pantsed by a better team. It was merely an extreme version of an all-too-familiar story. The Mariners are eight games under .500 just in general, and 15 games under .500 against opponents not named the Houston Astros.

The Mariners are doing nothing to take what the AL West is giving them

If you're one to always look on the bright side of life, the Mariners are no further from first place in the AL West on Wednesday morning than they were on Tuesday morning. The Astros also lost, keeping Seattle's deficit at 4.0 games.

This is to say there's still some hope left, and we can still do the thing where we count the ways the Mariners might make good on it. The bullpen is on the verge of getting reinforcements. Kade Anderson could potentially join the rotation soon. Julio has been heating up, and the same has quietly been true of Josh Naylor.

And yet, FanGraphs gives the Mariners just a 22.7 percent chance of repeating as AL West champions. That's down from a peak of 70.2 percent on June 8. That's life when you're 23-35 with a -78 run differential in your last 58 games.

This is not a playoff contender. It is a doormat for actual playoff contenders. All the Brewers and the baseball gods did on Tuesday was turn it all into a brutally honest picture.

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