The Mariners' 2026 season lost hope in the same place their magical 2025 ended

Although not officially out of the playoff race yet, the Mariners are the equivalent of a dead man walking with only nine games remaining. A season of high hopes has turned into arguably the most disappointing in 50 years of M's baseball, with people analyzing how and why it all fell apart. However, we're going to focus on when, which we'll warn you in advance is going to trigger some fans and potentially have them reaching for a bottle of gin (or whatever their tipple might be).

It's often claimed the Mariners franchise is cursed, with the baseball gods seemingly always looking for new ways to make them suffer. The main example of this is arguably the 2001 campaign, when the M's equaled the all-time regular season wins record of 116 before going on to lose the ALCS to the Yankees in five games. However, this year it almost feels as if the aim has been to have as many laughs as possible at the franchise's expense.

We're talking about the likes of handshakegate, Brendan Donovan playing the fewest games of his career due to injury issues and Cal Raleigh seemingly losing the ability to hit. It gets worse and more mocking though, with other examples including Jo Adell's Superman impression when he robbed three homers from the Mariners in a single game, and Ichiro's state being unveiled with a broken bat.

However, when it comes to pinpointing the moment the M's 2026 campaign lost hope, those baseball gods decided to also throw in an unhealthy dose of trauma.

The chance for redemption in Toronto instead becomes a moment when reality hits the Mariners

Mariners fans are still haunted by Game 7 of last October's ALCS versus the Blue Jays, when the team was just eight outs away from a first ever World Series berth, before having it taken away by the bat of George Springer. As such, when the M's returned to Toronto at the end of last month, it felt like the ideal opportunity to get at least some measure of revenge and also reignite their playoff challenge. Instead, it all went horribly wrong.

The Mariners entered the series sitting 3.0 games back of the AL West summit, and a further game back of the final wild card spot. However, the M's were coming off impressive home series wins versus the Cubs and Phillies, and the three-game set in Toronto was meant to represent the beginning of a soft stretch run in the schedule which surely even they couldn't screw up. So of course, the result was a series sweep at the hands of a Blue Jays team which themselves has disappointed this season.

What could have been a statement series that turned things around instead devolved into an unmitigated disaster. And what made it even worse was the manner of the sweep, as the Mariners were blown out 8-1 in Friday's series opener and somehow allowed a struggling Max Scherzer to have his best outing in a Blue Jays uniform in the finale. However, it was Saturday's game when you really got the sense the M's season was in trouble and they were just being outright mocked by someone up above.

Saturday represented the best chance for the Mariners to leave Toronto with at least one win. And they were leading 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth, when Eduard Bazardo came in to replace Kade Anderson with one out and two men on base. Bazardo subsequently got the second out but then walked a hitter to load the bases, leading to the pivotal point of the game.

Eduard Bazardo is left with egg on his face in a perfect encapsulation of the M's season

As fate would have it, Springer came up to bat. The chance was there for Bazardo to exorcize the demons of giving up the soul-destroying three-run homer which cost the Mariners their World Series berth last season. Instead, he misfired a pitch which walked in one run, but made it worse by going to home plate and not realizing he had to tag Brett Bateman, who was hustling from second base in an attempt to also score.

The result was Batemen slid home while Bazardo stood around looking clueless, allowing the Blue Jays to pull to within one run instead of two and set the stage for a comeback win by the home side. The farcical nature of it all might well have perfectly encapsulated this Mariners season, for a team which just couldn't seem to get out of its own way and repeatedly made unnecessary and costly errors. As for the series as a whole, it was unfathomable that they could come out and perform as they did, knowing everything which was at stake.

Just a basic look at the overall stats tells you the Mariners have been poor this season, fueled by plenty of examples of infuriating losses. And yet hope continued to remain within the fanbase due to the talent of the roster, the core of which helped them get so close to that elusive World Series berth last October.

As such, it almost seems fitting that it would take a return to the scene of the crime in Toronto, to be hit by the cold realization that 2026 was just not going to be the Mariners' year. We just don't appreciate that the baseball gods decided to do it in the most cruel and mocking way possible.

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