Mariners 2023 Recap: Re-visiting 4 Negative Pivotal Moments from this Season

We've talked about some of the happy and exciting moments this season for the Mariners, but it's important to take a look back at some of the ones that shaped the season in a negative manner as well. Here are some of the lowlights from the Mariners 2023 season.

1. Robbie Ray Goes Down for the Season

The Mariners pitching staff took a lot of unfortunate hits this year. Marco Gonzales was shut down in June after he required surgery to fix a compressed nerve in his forearm. Penn Murfee was off to a great start but required UCL surgery at the start of the summer, ending his season prematurely. Promising prospects Emerson Hancock and Easton McGee barely got their feet wet before also being sidelined with similar arm issues.

But the most integral piece the team lost to injury was probably Robbie Ray. Most people's opinions on Ray depend on how often they think of his catastrophic relief appearance in the first game of the 2022 ALDS, but he's still an integral part of the team's rotation.

Brought on following his exceptional Cy Young season in 2021, Ray's 2022 wasn't the season Mariners fans were hoping for. Originally brought on to be the team's ace, he didn't quite live up to the five-year, $115M contract to which he was signed but he was effective nonetheless. He posted a 3.71 ERA and 1.19 WHIP over 189 innings pitched. More importantly, he was one of two left-handed starters, the other being Marco Gonzales.

Ray didn't even have a chance to earn redemption for his last pitching appearance in 2022. He pitched just 3.1 innings in 2023, giving up three earned runs in his only showing against the Cleveland Guardians. Had he been healthy for the entirety of the season, there's a good chance he would've made consistent quality starts and given the Mariners a few more wins than they ultimately had.

2. Jarred Kelenic Breaks His Foot

Mariners fans have been waiting for Kelenic to breakout since he became a part of the minor league system. After a tumultuous start to his major-league career, it seemed like it was finally happening. In the first month of 2023, he slashed an insane .308/.366/.615 and seemed to be a more effective bat than even Julio Rodriguez. He cooled down significantly in May (.727 OPS) and even more in June (.588) OPS before finally allowing his frustration to boil over, kicking a water cooler and breaking his foot.

His injury left a gap in left field that was eventually filled by Dominic Canzone, but it was clear that any momentum he had from the start of the season was officially gone. He made just 75 plate appearances in the second half of the season, posting a .707 OPS and slowly but surely regressing to slightly below league-average.

2023 Kelenic is still a significant improvement over the .141/.221/.313 player we saw in 2022, but if he had been able to refocus in a more effective way during his summer slump, he might've been able to rediscover what made him so great in the spring.

4. Seattle Barely Miss out on the Playoffs

If the team had made the postseason, it would've been the second time in franchise history that the Mariners were in the playoffs for two consecutive seasons. In an extremely competitive race for the AL West as well as the third AL Wild Card spot, it came down to the wire.

On the 161st game of the season, the Mariners lost 6-1 to the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros won 1-0 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Being three games behind the division-leading Texas Rangers and two games behind the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays with one game left to play meant that it was all over for Seattle.

It was a heartbreaking end to a year where the team was so close to repeating the glory of 2022, especially given how the Mariners eventually went 3-1 against the Rangers in their final series of the year. Furthermore, if the Astros or Blue Jays had lost one more game, it could've created just enough room for Seattle to squeeze into October.