The Dan Wilson bashers were out in full force on Thursday night as the Seattle Mariners lost 5-2 against the San Diego Padres on Thursday night at Petco Park.

It was the eighth consecutive loss for the M's against teams not named the Houston Astros and earned the M's their second sweep of the season.

The Mariners are just 1-8 on the road in this campaign and at 8-12, they are one of the most disappointing teams in baseball through 20 games.

Let's take a look at the situation in question, and all the layers that go into it.

Trailing 4-0 in the sixth inning, the Mariners came back to make it 4-2. Then, with the bases loaded and one out, the Mariners had Luke Raley coming to the plate. Raley was the first in the line of four consecutive lefties (Raley, JP Crawford, Dominic Canzone and Cole Young), so the Padres went to the bullpen and brought in elite reliever Adrian Morejon.

As this happened, Wilson went to the bench to get Connor Joe, who hadn't played in more than a week. Joe struck out on three pitches and Crawford grounded out to second, ending the inning.

Why fans are upset: Well, Raley has been hot. He was excellent in the Houston series and had four hits on Wednesday. Pulling him not only meant pulling the hot bat, but also not having him available later in the game should a big situation arise again.

The Mariners operate a pretty strict platoon rule. Canzone and Raley play against righties and Victor Robles and Rob Refsnyder play against lefties.

The problem here? Robles is on the injured list and Refsnyder was away on paternity leave, which is what led the M's to need to use Joe.

Raley has a .182 career batting average against left-handers. He's never proven he can hit left-handers, especially someone as elite as Morejon, who features a 100 mph fastball and a wicked slider.

Luke Arkins, M's Insider, posted the graphic comparing Raley's and Joe's 2023-26 against lefties with Joe's numbers looking substantially better.

Despite that history, Joe has not been a productive big league player over the last year and change, which is why some fans would have rather stuck with Raley.

I caught some grief on social media for not being as up-in-arms about the whole thing as most others. I don't mean to come off as a Dan Wilson apologist, but the reason why I wasn't that upset? There were almost no good options available to Wilson. 

Let's examine them further.

As stated: Raley has been poor his entire career against lefties. While anything can happen, the baseball odds were not in his favor.

That's not a great option for the Mariners to have.

Yes, keeping Raley in would have kept him available for later in the game, but the game was hanging in the balance right then. People got upset in the 2025 playoffs when Wilson didn't insert Matt Brash or Andres Munoz into a high-leverage spot in the sixth or seventh innings, instead keeping them for the eighth or ninth innings.

Isn't this what fans have been clamoring for? Wilson to attack high-leverage spots in the moment? And not worry about might come later?

Well, we saw what happened. He fanned on three pitches. And of course, Joe came up in a huge spot in the eighth inning. Ironically, he had the hardest hit ball of the night, but it didn't find any grass.

Having Joe in a position to take two critical at-bats is not on anyone's bingo card of desired outcomes.

Garver is a solid hitter against southpaws, and he undoubtedly would have represented a better option against Morejon than Raley - or Joe.

The problem? Garver would be in the game in Raley's spot, and would immediately need to be removed defensively. Joe would have had to enter the game anyways to play right field, setting him up for that late at-bat anyways.

And the M's would have been down their backup catcher should anything have happened to Cal Raleigh.

Wisdom, who has more experience and more power than Joe, also would have represented a better option.

The problem, similarly? What happens defensively? 

If Wisdom is now in the game, he likely needs to go to third base with Brendan Donovan going to right field. Donovan has a lot of outfield experience, but we haven't seen him out there even once this season.

It doesn't mean it wouldn't have been OK, but it's also not a great option.

My guess? The Mariners were hoping to use Joe for Raley so they could put him in the outfield, and then use Wisdom for Canzone two batters later, keeping him in the DH spot.

A switch-hitter with a good eye, Rivas could have presented a challenge for Morejon, but the same defensive questions would have persisted, with Donovan needing to go into the outfield.

I think it's pretty clear that there were no good options for Wilson here. Refsnyder, even though he is struggling, would have been the logical choice all along, but he wasn't there. That presented the Mariners with a clear problem and no good solution.

So, in one way, I'm not that upset, because there was no clear-cut positive solution. In another way, if there's no good options, maybe the best option was to just let Raley hit.

I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that this team is struggling mightily and they need to figure it out fast. If they don't, individual decisions like this won't matter much, because there will be bigger problems to figure out.

Remember to join our MARINERS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Mariners fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!