Matt Brash's awkward moment with Dan Wilson reveals a deeper Mariners problem

The Mariners should find out on Thursday whether Matt Brash needs to go on the injured list. All we know for now is that right side discomfort forced him out of Wednesday's game after just two pitches, though we can also lament that he had to be out there at all.

The moment when Brash left the mound wasn't heated, per se, but you could say it was charged. After Cal Raleigh signaled to the dugout following an awkward spiked changeup, it was mostly Dan Wilson talking and Brash standing there like he didn't want to hear it.

“I wasn’t arguing with Dan, but he was telling me to come out of the game," Brash said, per Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times, "and I was just, I don’t know. I was just trying to process it all in the moment.”

Thanks to Cole Young, the Mariners at least avoided catastrophe with a comeback 5-3 win. Yet calamity did ensue after Brash left in the eighth inning, with Gabe Speier giving up the go-ahead run on three hits and a walk. Even though Andrés Muñoz eventually nailed things down in the ninth, the game still went into the books as another rough showing for the Seattle bullpen.

We're not about to wish an IL stint on anyone, but Daniel Kramer of MLB.com opined that one "will likely be considered" for Brash. Notably, the 27-year-old righty copped to having felt the discomfort in his side for several days before Wednesday.

Matt Brash's early exit from Wednesday's game is a symptom of an undermanned bullpen

Though he's been the team's best reliever this season, the Mariners have tread carefully with Brash following his return from Tommy John surgery in 2025 and subsequent arm inflammation during the offseason. Using him on back-to-back days is best avoided — much less when it's a day game after a night game with an even lower starting temperature, as was the case in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

But then again, what were Brash and Wilson supposed to do besides enter into a collective agreement to give it a go?

After George Kirby handled the first 5.2 innings, Wilson had already used Eduard Bazardo and Jose A. Ferrer. And with the score tied 2-2, the eighth inning called for a leverage arm. Brash and Speier were the only two practical options, and both had pitched the day before. The better of two suboptimal choices thus came down to matchups, and it was the right-handed Brash who was set to have the platoon advantage against Ryan Jeffers and Luke Keaschall.

So yeah, we'd rather Wilson have rolled the dice with Brash in lieu of miscasting Cooper Criswell, Cole Wilcox or Alex Hoppe as a high-leverage reliever. We're also glad that Wilson got Brash out of there at the first (fine, second) sign of trouble.

Overall, though, the whole situation was downstream of the fact that the Mariners just don't have enough quality relievers. Depending on how one feels about Ferrer, Wilson has at most five guys he can trust. The other three spots consist of a long man (Criswell) and two Quad-A types (Wilcox and Hoppe). Even with a starting staff that eats as many innings as Seattle's, that's a problem.

The fact that the Mariners have been without Carlos Vargas since Opening Day is certainly a big part of said problem. And if Brash does need to go on the IL, it won't exactly get better.

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