The Mariners lost to the Kansas City Royals on Friday night, and one can't help but wonder what would have happened if the right-hander had been available.
On Friday's edition of the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast, I made the following statement as we waited for news about Matt Brash's injury for the Seattle Mariners.
"If Matt Brash is not here, what does that mean? Well, it means that Bazardo, Ferrer, Speier all probably have to throw an inning later than they're used to. Now Bazardo and Speier become your 8th-inning guys instead of Brash. What does that mean?
That means that somebody else has to clean up the fifth or clean up the sixth, and we've talked about the pivot guys in the bullpen struggling through the early part of the season. Well, they're about to get more action as well if Matt Brash is out. Then you're going to have have more pressure on the starters to go a full six or seven to avoid needing those pivot guys en masse.
You also are going to have a situation where I mean, look, with five leverage guys, you can give a couple of guys a day off here and use two or three leverage guys there, and then the next day, those guys can be off, and the guys that were off can come back and pitch. If you shrink the leverage guys, you are ending up in a spot where you're going to have more guys needed to throw back-to-back, which has a toll at the end of the season. Matt Brash is an irreplaceable loss for the Mariners."
Seattle Mariners pitcher Matt Brash (47) throws in the fifth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays during game four of the ALCS round for the 2025 MLB playoffs at T-Mobile Park. Kevin Ng-Imagn ImagesI really just want to refer you back to the first paragraph there, because that's exactly what happened on Friday night as the Mariners lost to the Kansas City Royals.
The Mariners trailed 4-0 in the first inning but eventually rallied to tie the game at 6-6 heading into the top of the eighth. In the eighth, Mariners manager Dan Wilson went to left-hander Jose Ferrer against 4-5-6 in the Royals order, and the Royals ended up scoring one run to eventually win the game 7-6.
Now, we can wonder why Wilson went to Ferrer instead of left-hander Gabe Speier all we want, but the point holds true: Without Brash, things get much dicier for the Mariners. That seems like it would have been a spot for Brash to pitch, with Wilson then able to turn it over to Andres Munoz in the ninth, or at least to a lower-leverage reliever for the bottom of the order in the ninth.
Maybe Wilson would have gone to a lefty anyways given that there were multiple lefties set to bat for the Royals, but without Brash there, there wasn't even a choice to be made, proving that his 15-day injured list stint will continue to yield the M's with tough choices and no option that's as good as him.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
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!