Homecoming Kings: Mariners vs. Royals Series Preview
The Mariners return home for a big four-game series against the Royals.
This one counts. The Mariners are 43-40. They’ve gone 10-6 since I wrote “they need to turn things around” in mid June; their playoff odds have jumped back up to 60%, though their division odds continue to plummet. It’s the start of a crucial three-week stretch. The Royals are the first in back-to-back series against sub-.500 teams, with the Pirates in town this weekend. Then the Mariners play three consecutive series against the American League’s leaders — the Yankees and Tigers to enter the All-Star break, and the Astros coming out of it. That will get us to deadline week, with the standings to determine the fate of the roster. Two bad, three great, versus the Mariners.
This is also the first home series since June 18. The Mariners lineup posted a solid 125 wRC+ on the 10-game road trip, but their 85 tOPS+ at home the year represents the low half of the second largest home/road split ever. Six batters on the active roster have a .532 OPS or worse at T-Mobile Park in 2025; many of them are actively playing for their jobs ahead of the deadline.
The Royals won 86 games last year and made the playoffs, signaling the end of a ruthless six-year tank. They’re now six games below .500, with playoff odds of about 10%. It hasn’t always been bad for the Royals in 2025. They hovered around .500 for the first two months, but they’ve gone 8-17 in June, losing seven of their last eight. Their brand of great pitching and “just enough” hitting hasn’t held up under good pitching and “not enough” hitting.
The Royals lineup is bad by every measurement. They’ve scored the fewest runs in MLB. They’ve hit the fewest home runs in MLB. They have the lowest walk rate in MLB. They have the fourth lowest wRC+ in MLB. Bobby Witt Jr. is still great, of course. He hasn’t continued his 10-win pace, but he’s still a good batter and a great defender and (arguably) the best shortstop in MLB. Maikel Garcia has been a strong 2a for the Royals, spraying line drives, avoiding strikeouts, and drawing the occasional walk. Vinnie Pasquantino hasn’t quite refound what made him great as a rookie, but he’s still OK at the plate. The rest is a bit of a mess. Never walking and poor base running has finally caught up to Salvador Perez, whose decline in batted ball performance makes him a bottom 10 batter this year. Perpetual Trade Speculation Subject Jonathan India has (somewhat predictably) missed the short porch of Cincinnati. Top prospect Jac Caglianone has been among the league’s worst rookies by wRC+, highlighting a group of young batters who haven’t yet taken The Next Step. Seattle restaurant-goer Mark Canha’s reign of terror may be coming to an end, though he has a .834 OPS in 174 career plate appearances at T-Mobile Park.
Probable Pitchers
After bouncing around four teams in four years from 2020–23, Michael Wacha has found a home with the Royals. He posted a career-best 3.3 fWAR in 2024 and signed a three-year extension to stay in Kansas City through his age-35 season this offseason. Wacha added a slider to his pitch mix last year to bring the number of pitches in his repertoire up to six. None of them are all that outstanding except for his changeup which is one of the best in baseball. A deep pitch mix with a bunch of average-ish offerings and one elite pitch is the type of kitchen-sink starter the Royals have coveted recently, and it’s undeniably worked out for them.
Michael Lorenzen one-ups Wacha with a seven-pitch mix. The changeup is still the standout but Wacha’s excellent command allows his arsenal to play up a bit more. Lorenzen’s command tool isn’t as good and so he’s liable to struggle through prolonged ups and downs as his feel comes and goes. Last year, Lorenzen managed to field an ERA more than a run and a half lower than his FIP thanks to some impressive contact suppression. His BABIP has increased by 58 points this year and his ERA has shot up to 4.91. He has cut his walk rate by four points, but his entire approach is so contact oriented, that all those extra hits are sabotaging any progress he’s made on the command front.
Noah Cameron entered the season as the Royals top pitching prospect and appears to have a much more stable ceiling than so many of the other young pitchers who have flamed out of Kansas City’s development pipeline recently. His high, over-the-top delivery generates a ton of backspin on his four-seamer and allows him to produce a ton of depth on his two breaking balls. He’s got good command of his entire repertoire, though he’s struggled with a home run problem at times because of the north-south nature of his pitch mix. He made his major league debut at the end of April and has impressed across nine starts so far.
If you thought Wacha and Lorenzen had deep repertoires, just take a look at the long list of pitches Seth Lugo throws. You can quibble about pitch classification if you want — the four of the five different breaking balls listed above are variations on his elite curveball which he manipulates to get different looks to keep batters off balance. Lugo has struggled a bit with his command this year — his walk rate is higher than it’s been since 2021 — but he’s maintained an excellent 2.74 ERA despite all the extra traffic.
The Big Picture:
The Mariners are currently one of only six teams in the American League with a record over .500. Those six teams currently hold the six playoff spots and there’s a whole jumble of teams sitting just below .500 who are chasing that final Wild Card spot.
The Astros took care of business against the Cubs last weekend and head to Colorado to face the worst team in baseball this week. The Angels lost their series to the Nationals over the weekend and will travel to Atlanta while the Rangers continue their homestand against the Orioles.