SEATTLE -- I'll be honest. This piece seems a little out of place, but it's still important to write and talk about. And it could have a big impact going forward.

See, on Friday night, the Seattle Mariners topped the Cleveland Guardians for their first win of the year. Though it wasn't a save situation, closer Andres Munoz shut the door in the ninth inning on the Guardians, allowing just a single while striking out two.

Not only was the inning mostly clean, it was very encouraging. Munoz threw strikes, not walking anyone, and his slider velocity returned.

See, Munoz has had four consecutive years of declining velocities, and though he's still excellent, he's slightly more hittable than he used to be. His slider velocity averaged 86.1 mph in 2025, but that doesn't tell the full story. In the second half of the season, we saw several sliders at 83 and 84 miles per hour. They were loopier, rather than late-breaking. In spring training we saw more of the same, at least before Munoz left for the World Baseball Classic.

But on Friday, the slider was in the 86 mph range again, even hitting 87.

I spoke to Munoz pre-game on Saturday to see if he made a mechanical adjustment to rediscover the velocity, or if he just felt good because of the adrenaline of his first appearance of the season. He says it was the former.

"No, I’ve been working in that a lot. Yeah, I’ve been working a lot because I obviously have both: One hard one, one slower one. But sometimes I don’t even know which one is coming. Yeah, so I’ve been working a lot in that, on being more consistent with that. And especially with the velo -- I know why it’s (been) going slower than normally. But the good thing is I can feel why it’s happening now. It’s because it’s getting I’m getting around it and all that. But it’s not a big deal. It’s just something that I didn’t see before."

The full interview with Munoz will come out on the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast early next week, but I interpreted his "two different sliders" comments to mean that he's seen evidence of a harder slider and a slower slider. I believe he wants to throw all his sliders hard, and if he sees a slower velocity reading, he'll understand why.

I asked Munoz further on when he learned that a mechanical tweak was needed, and he said it came in the World Baseball Classic when longtime Mexican pitcher Manny Barreda mentioned something to him. Since then, he's continued to work with Mariners pitching gurus like Pete Woodworth and Trent Blank to refine the slider. He said he's been working with Blank almost every day to make the pitch better.

"It's the way that I get better. The way that I like to work. I like to be on top of those things and don't want to wait until bad things happen to do it."

This is a potentially huge development for Munoz and the Mariners, as his slider is one of the most devastating pitches in baseball, especially when it's sharper and late-breaking.

So why does this feel article feel out of place? Because Munoz gave up three runs and suffered the loss in Saturday's 6-5 defeat against the Guardians. The damage came after a throwing error and a ridiculous two-run homer from Chase DeLauter, so it's hard to fully blame Munoz for what happened, but still, this piece likely fit better after a shutdown performance.

Furthermore, the slider velocity was back down to 85.3 mph, and there were a couple of those 83's and 84's again. Though Munoz has an easier time identifying the issue, it's clearly going to take an adjustment period for him to get consistent with it.

But if the two-time All-Star does, he should be one of the best relievers in baseball yet again.

The Mariners will play the Guardians again on Sunday at 4:20 p.m. PT. Emerson Hancock will pitch against Slade Cecconi.

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