Dominic Canzone's cold-blooded homer may have just saved Mariners' 2026 season

The lowest the Seattle Mariners' win probability for Sunday's game against the Texas Rangers got was 15 percent. Flip the math around, and you get an 85 percent chance of a loss that would have clinched a critical series defeat and validated the sinking feeling in Mariners fans' guts.

And then Dominic Canzone decided it was time to mangia.

Even now, roughly an hour after the ball landed in the right-field seats at Globe Life Field, it's hard to describe the feeling of his game-breaking three-run homer in the seventh inning. It was elation, relief and disbelief all at once. It was "Hallelujah!" at the crack of a bat.

It helps that the Mariners lived to tell the tale of a win. Randy Arozarena followed with a homer of his own on the very next pitch. The bullpen survived a solo homer off Eduard Bazardo in the eighth and got another RBI from Canzone on a double in the ninth. Like that, a 3-1 deficit against Jacob deGrom into a 6-4 win, Seattle's first since Monday.

Rumors of the Mariners' demise remain exaggerated… at least for now

To say that the vibes were bad at the outset of Sunday's game would have been like saying the weather in Arlington was on the tepid side. It was 104 degrees outside, you fool. And for the Mariners, losses in the first two games of the series put the team on track to indeed find their ruination in a road trip that offered an obvious path to it.

Even now, they still need two more wins just to get their record to .500. One good offensive game does not erase two bad games to start the series following the shambolic firing of Bobby Maganalles. The relief work remains a hold-your-breath affair. The wait for key injuries to heal remains agonizingly long and less than encouraging, to boot.

But, hey, life is life. The Mariners have at least leapfrogged back over the Houston Astros to claim second place in the AL West again. They're 1.5 games behind the Rangers, with the potential to make it a series split and a 0.5-game deficit with a win in Monday's finale of the four-game set.

All eyes are on Jerry Dipoto as the trade deadline bears down

If the thought was merely creeping in on Friday and Saturday, the first half of Sunday's game put it front and center: Should the Mariners be thinking of selling at the trade deadline?

Pre-Canzone moonshot, the Mariners were on their way to a 26th loss in 44 games, and with an MLB-low 154 runs scored to show for it. It felt like the season was slipping into "cut your losses and move on" territory. Trade Arozarena? Sure. And why not one of the starters, too? Screw it!

But even if this wasn't overly pessimistic, it was a denial of reality to at least one extent. The Mariners have not had a good season, but the saving grace the whole time has been the overall mediocrity of the American League. All sorts of things remain achievable, including a second straight year with an AL West title and a first-round bye.

So unless it's nothing but Ls between now and the August 3 trade deadline, Jerry Dipoto should still be firmly in "buy" mode as he works the phones. Curtis Mead may be off the board, but a right-handed hitter remains a need. Ditto for a reliever, with Mason Miller's name still atop the wish list.

Nobody wants to jinx it by saying it can't get worse than it's been. But today, at least, you really can believe that it can still get better.

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