Mariners' ongoing offensive disaster should raise the heat on Edgar Martinez

The Seattle Mariners did not clinch a series loss to the Detroit Tigers on Thursday because the offense failed to deliver. It's hard to win games when the pitching (and Victor Robles) gives up 11 runs. Yet two shutout losses in three days is hard to take even in the best of times. And right now, the times are so bad that even the head of a franchise icon like Edgar Martinez should not be safe.

Following today's 11-0 loss to Detroit, the Mariners have been shut out 11 times this year. That is tied for the most in MLB, and it's already five more shutouts than they had all of last season. Overall, only one team has scored fewer runs than the Mariners.

This is it. As in, this is the story of why the Mariners are 56-60 and running short on hope. As much as we can talk about Dan Wilson's questionable managerial qualities, a steady drumbeat of injuries and an underwhelming trade deadline, it always comes back to an offense that just keeps discovering new forms of inertia.

It's looking less and less like Bobby Magallanes was the problem with the Mariners' offense

Remember when the Mariners fired assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes? Remember how that was supposed to be a shot across the bow meant to wake up the bats?

It was a cute notion even at the time, and the ensuing weeks have pretty much revealed it to be the farce it always was. Here's the statistical breakdown:

With Magallanes, the offense was bad. Without him, it has somehow been worse. It's almost as if the trend towards an unmitigated offensive disaster is irreversible.

Relative to last season, the Mariners have had the seventh-biggest drop in batting average, the sixth-biggest drop in on-base percentage and the fourth-biggest drop in slugging percentage. Damning stuff all the way down.

The Mariners need to take a hard look at what Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer might be missing

It's only fair to offer some defense of Edgar Martinez and Kevin Seitzer, who operate as the Mariners' senior director of hitting strategy and hitting coach, respectively.

And yet, stuff like this would be better suited to contextualizing a minor offensive dropoff. It doesn't work as well as an excuse for the full-on catastrophe that has befallen Seattle's offense in 2026. When something like this happens, it raises the question of what's really been missing.

Anyone who has watched Mariners hitters this year won't be surprised to hear of an increase to their out-of-zone swing rate (+3.3%). But what has really stood out is how consistently guys have been dominated by fastballs, which shows in Run Value:

• 2025: +25, 7th in MLB
• 2026: -42, 28th in MLB

That's a 67-point swing in the wrong direction. Only three teams have had bigger declines in Run Value against fastballs relative to 2025. And since fastballs make up 55 percent of all the pitches Mariners hitters have seen, they have basically been helpless more than half the time when in the box.

Raleigh has been Seattle's worst offender, posting a -17 Run Value against fastballs after going off for a +28 Run Value in his 60-homer season last year. If it's a question of what exactly has gone wrong, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated was able to break down issues with Raleigh's setup and swing that fit nicely into a two-minute video. Either Martinez and Seitzer haven't noticed the same underlying issues, or they have and simply been unable to get Raleigh to make changes.

Either way, it is absolutely fair to ask exactly what they bring to the table in 2026. We know the answer in 2025 had a lot to do with advocating the right mindset and useful routines, but a new season was always going to bring new tests. And to this extent, whatever plan there was has been failing on an almost daily basis.

Seitzer was fired by the Atlanta Braves after a similar offensive downfall from 2023 to 2024. So, at least there's real-world precedent for firing him. Doing the same with Martinez is going to be a lot harder. He's a Mariners Hall of Famer precisely because he's one of the best hitters ever. Firing him for failing at anything hitting-related is news nobody wants to deliver.

But whether it's sooner or later, the Mariners seriously need to be considering whether it's the right way forward.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow