Post-sweep Mariners will have their hands full with Aaron Judge, Yankees

After getting swept by the Toronto Blue Jays for their first series loss in over a month, the Seattle Mariners have precious little time to lick their wounds before they have to contend with an even more potent foe from the American League East.

Aaron Judge is coming, and he's bringing the rest of the New York Yankees with him.

Judge has a "He Who Must Not Be Named" reputation among Mariners fans, and deservedly so given how much he's punished the M's throughout his career. He has a 1.141 OPS and 15 home runs against Seattle, with 10 of those homers coming at T-Mobile Park.

As both the Mariners (22-17) and Yankees (23-17) are in first place in their respective divisions, the upcoming three-game set between the two is a titillating early-season showdown, not to mention a major test for both clubs.

The only way the Mariners are going to pass their test, though, is if they somehow keep Judge under wraps.

If the Mariners can't contain Aaron Judge, they may be in for yet another disastrous series

As you may have heard, keeping Judge under wraps has been next to impossible lately. He was already a lethal slugger — remember when he hit an American League-record 62 homers in 2022? — and now he has Jayson Stark of The Athletic wondering if he's the best right-handed hitter of modern times.

Shout "Edgar Martínez!" all you want, but the reality is that Judge is batting over .400 in 2025 with even more ridiculous numbers dating back to last May. His last 162 games have yielded a .368/.491/.781 slash line with 65 home runs, a 249 wRC+ and 14.3 fWAR.

To put this in perspective, Barry Bonds didn't have a 249 wRC+ when he hit 73 home runs in 2001. Further, only Babe Ruth has ever topped 14.0 fWAR in a full season.

There's never a good time to come across a guy this hot, but now is an especially bad time for the Mariners to encounter the 6-foot-7, 282-pound Judge. Even setting aside this weekend's sweep, the pitching staff is still undermanned while Logan Gilbert and George Kirby work to recover from injuries. It ranks 17th in the league with a 4.00 ERA.

Seattle pitchers can try feeding Judge a diet of breaking and offspeed pitches, against which he's whiffing at more than 40 percent of the time. Yet this is easier said than done, as he's among the best in baseball at controlling the strike zone and arguably the best at hitting mistakes.

Though Judge is a singular threat, he's also but one reason why the Yankees are scoring a league-best 5.88 runs per game. Paul Goldschmidt, Ben Rice, and Trent Grisham are also having terrific seasons, and the runs don't tend to stop once the lineup gets rolling. The Yankees have scored 10-plus runs in a game eight times already, including three times in their last five games.

As dangerous as the Mariners have been on offense in their own right, they have scored 10 runs in a game only three times this season. They probably can't win a slugfest, unless maybe Julio Rodríguez picks now as a good time to go on one of his heaters.

It could happen. J-Rod is already off to the best 39-game start of his career, and he's been warming up with a .798 OPS and three home runs in his last 13 appearances. As is the case up and down the lineup, he's also been a much tougher out this year than he had been in the past.

This is one area where the Mariners can exploit the Yankees. Whereas Seattle's offense has the highest walk rate (10.6 percent) in baseball, New York's pitchers have the fourth-highest walk rate (10.1 percent) on the flip side. Clarke Schmidt and Will Warren are especially complicit in that, and the Mariners will see both in this series.

Any successful defense of their home turf on the Mariners' part will set them up for a new series winning streak. But should they fail, they'll have lost back-to-back series for the first time since the Detroit Tigers and San Francisco Giants got them between March 31 and April 6.

Game Times and Probable Pitchers for Mariners vs. Yankees, May 12-14

• Monday, May 12 at 6:40 p.m. PT: Clarke Schmidt vs. Emerson Hancock
• Tuesday, May 13 at 6:40 p.m. PT: Max Fried vs. Bryan Woo
• Wednesday, May 14 at 1:10 p.m. PT: Will Warren vs. Luis Castillo