Morosi: The missing piece Mariners’ offense needs

With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror, the MLB season has officially hit the two-month sprint to October.

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Despite an underwhelming season and below .500 record, the Seattle Mariners are still in the thick of the playoff chase with aspirations of winning a second division title in a row for the first time in franchise history.

If the Mariners are going to achieve their goal of getting back to the postseason, they’re going to need more production from their struggling lineup, which ranks 29th in the majors at 3.95 runs per game.

During a conversation with Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob on Wednesday, MLB Network insider Jon Morosi described the missing piece that needs to emerge for Seattle’s lineup to start producing at a higher level.

Morosi’s take stemmed from the fact that Cole Young led the team with 51 RBIs at the time of their conversation.

“I do think this speaks to one of the problems they’ve run into, which is you look at what Cal (Raleigh) did a year ago and even what Julio (Rodríguez) can do when he’s having a really good Julio-type season, they just have not had – and I’ll borrow one of the favorite terms of Dan O’Dowd, one of my colleagues at MLB Network who used to be the GM of the Rockies. Dan O’Dowd likes to call them aircraft carriers,” Morosi said.

“The Mariners just do not have an aircraft carrier right now and they better find one over the next couple of months.”

Raleigh played that role during his 60-homer season last year when he drove in an American League-high 125 runs. Rodríguez also had 95 RBIs in 2025.

Young entered Thursday projected for the most RBIs on the team this year at 72. He had done that while starting 88 of his 115 games batting sixth or later in the order.

So, what can change for the M’s moving forward?

“It’s an interesting question because Jerry Dipoto and his comments after the trade deadline really touched on this point, which was it was a hard roster to upgrade, even though they’re under .500, because a lot of the guys that are on the roster are going to be on the roster (for some time),” Morosi said. “They are under contract for a while and as much as you’d love to trade half the team every day in your own mind if you’re the GM sometimes, you can’t do that.”

“The hope is that (Taylor) Ward lengthens the lineup and that (Brendan) Donovan gives them something approximating (to) what they expected to get from him,” Morosi said. “… He’s playing with a groin that’s giving him trouble since May and the hope is that he’s ready to go right now. Time will tell. It’s going to have to come from either a jolt with one of these guys that has just come back in – either Ward or Donovan – or (Josh) Naylor or Julio or Cal has to really get going.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-7 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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