Cole Young is figuring things out in the nick of time at Mariners camp

A week ago, it was fair to look at Cole Young and wonder if the Mariners were about to talk themselves into a second-base answer that still needed more time. The at-bats were straight up bad and the swing decisions looked even worse. For a player the organization has clearly wanted to believe in, that was not exactly the soothing start anybody had in mind.

And then Young wrecked that panic when the calendar turned to March. 

After that rough February stretch, he flipped the tone, popping three homers while cutting the strikeouts way down. Seattle does not have the luxury of pretending this is all just a fun little exhibition subplot. Opening Day is right around the corner. The Mariners need clarity in the infield, and Young getting hot right now feels a lot different than if this had happened two weeks from now.

Cole Young’s late spring surge reveals a reassuring Mariners development

What makes it encouraging is that this does not feel like empty spring production. Young crushed two pull-side homers in one game on March 6 and now sits just behind Brennen Davis in Cactus League home runs, while Jerry Dipoto went as far as to say, “Cole Young looks unbelievable right now” and praised the way he attacked the offseason. Young himself said he felt the turnaround coming because of the work he put in.

The timing is the part Mariners fans should probably latch onto. Because Seattle kind of needed this exhale. Young’s debut season already had enough turbulence that he lost his regular role by September and was left off the Mariners’ postseason rosters. So when he opened camp looking shaky again, it was not hard to imagine the conversation getting uncomfortable. 

The fastball concern has not magically disappeared either, and that part still deserves side-eye. If he is still going 1-for-10 against four-seamers, nobody should pretend one hot week erased the one pitch family that has given him real problems.

But the overall vibe is still much better than it was last Friday. The reason is simple. Young did not need to become a finished product this spring. He just needed to stop looking like a guy drifting into another confidence mess. He needed to remind the Mariners why they have been so publicly bullish in the first place. He has done that. And if the defensive work really does look cleaner, that only adds to the relief.

This also matters because the easiest fan escape hatch, Colt Emerson, does not exactly sound like a clean Opening Day answer right now either, with recent roster projections still pointing him toward Triple-A rather than Seattle.  So this surge by Young lands at exactly the right time.