Skidding Mariners already have fans wondering how early is too early to panic

You know a team's 4-9 start is especially ugly when fans are going all Bull Durham and wondering how they won four. So it is with the 2026 Mariners, who have certainly squandered some goodwill and may already be in danger of irreparably damaging their playoff trajectory.

If it's sugarcoating you're looking for, best move on. The story of the Mariners' season remained much the same as the Rangers finished off a three-game sweep with a 3-0 win on Wednesday. The pitching was there, but the hitting and defense still rendered the Mariners generally unwatchable. They have lost five in a row and seven out of eight.

Instead, let's get down to brass tacks: How much trouble are these ostensible World Series favorites in after 13 games?

History doesn't favor the Mariners, whose playoff chances are already in decline

One thing we can do is look at every team that ever started 4-9 or worse and pick out how many A) recovered to make the playoffs, B) made it to the World Series or C) won the World Series.

With the help of Baseball Reference, here are the numbers:

• Total teams: 395
• Made playoffs: 16
• Made World Series: 7
• Won World Series: 4

So, there is a chance that the Mariners will make good on what felt like maybe their best ever shot at the World Series coming out of spring training. But in the scheme of things, it's a Lloyd Christmas chance.

The bright side, such as it is, is that the rest of the AL West has not left the Mariners in the dust. They're in last place, but only 3.5 games behind the 7-5 Rangers for first. Even if they are down to 42.0 percent from 59.9 percent on Opening Day, FanGraphs still gives the Mariners the second-best odds of any AL team to win their division.

This functions as a reminder that they still have [checks notes] 149 games left to play out of 162. And if it's a question of what needs to go right, it comes down to keeping the pitching where it's at and getting the offense and defense into shape.

Patience should be the only necessary ingredient for the offense. There's just too much talent in the lineup for this team to be last in the AL in scoring. The club's three best hitters — Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez and Josh Naylor — especially aren't going to bat .130 all year.

The defense is a harder puzzle to solve, but we know the plan is to put Colt Emerson at third base eventually. He's a gifted defender, whereas Brendan Donovan clearly belongs elsewhere on the diamond. So, there's two reasons to buy stock in the defense now.

Still… I don't know, man. We can sit here and diagram/blueprint/whatever all the ways this Mariners team can get to where it's supposed to be. But at a certain point, it just needs to happen. The very real fear that anything that does happen could be too little, too late is a real drag.