One upshot of the Mariners’ deep playoff run in 2025 is that fans have been gifted with the shortest offseason in Mariners history. It’s been exactly four months since Game 7 of the ALCS. Those four months have contained multitudes: a rollercoaster of emotions, the stages of grief, one of the most exciting free agent signings of the last decade in Josh Naylor, and somehow the same offseason discourse that we have every year.
All of that has led us here.
It’s not quite an Opening Day lineup. Julio isn’t playing the field. Luke Raley is leading off. Michael Arroyo and Colt Emerson are getting some run, which means Cole Young and Brendan Donovan will wait to make their Spring Training debuts. Dane Dunning is neat, but hopefully won’t be a significant part of the 2026 Mariner rotation.
But it doesn’t particularly matter who’s in the lineup. It’s baseball. It’s televised baseball. The frigid weather in Seattle tells us it’s still winter, but the sunny warmth of Peoria we can see through the screen gives us a preview of what’s to come.
Oh yeah, and the Padres play too.
It’ll be all Dane Dunning can do to keep Padres legends Nick Castellanos and Ty France under control, lest this game get out of hand.
Game time: 12:10 PM PT
Watch: The shiny new Mariners.tv (the successor to Root, if you were living under a rock all winter)
Listen: Seattle Sports 710 AM
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