On Wednesday, Seattle Mariners closer Andres Munoz suffered a meltdown in the ninth inning of a loss against the San Diego Padres. Though there was some bad luck involved, Munoz gave up five earned runs on four hits and a walk. Though he threw 18 of his 26 pitches for strikes, his control was off again, something that has happened to him for three outings in a row. He has five walks in his last three appearances, though he was only burned once.

Speaking on Thursday before another loss against San Diego, a disappointed Munoz told reporters that he needed to "find himself." MarinersTV reporter Brad Adam re-iterated that Munoz was dejected about his performance in Thursday's pregame.

Now, if you're read or listened to me for the last several months, I've been pretty consistent on Munoz: I've thought that he is good and will put up good numbers, but I was worried about his generally-declining velocity and the spotty control. I was worried that those things, coupled together, would make outings harder for him in 2026.

But on Friday's 'Refuse to Lose,' podcast, I actually had a different thought than you might think based on my previous sentiments.

"I'm not as down on Andrés Muñoz as you probably expect. The issue is that Andrés Muñoz appears to be down on himself, and that has me more worried than anything else, right?

Part of the reason why I had trepidation about Muñoz was the spottier control mixed with declining stuff, mixed with declining velocity. Well, the declining velocity—that's been rectified so far. Through 20 games Andrés Muñoz, the 4-seam fastball is better than it was a year ago. The sinker is nearly a full mile an hour faster than it was a year ago. The slider is almost 88 miles an hour regularly. His average is almost 88 miles an hour on the slider. Last year it was 86.

So Andrés Muñoz' stuff is actually better this year, and because his stuff is better, that causes me to be less worried, right? You can have some iffier control as a closer if you have elite stuff, because you can pitch around some of that stuff. The best advice I ever got was 'you can give up walks or you can give up hits, but you cannot give up both.' My fear coming into the year was that Andrés Muñoz was going to give up both—lesser control, lesser velocity, easier to hit. So my fear was that Andrés Muñoz was going to give up both.

But now, the velocity is elite again. I mean, we're seeing fastballs at 100 miles an hour. We're seeing fastballs at 99. We're seeing sliders at 88 to 90. I mean, his stuff looks really good, actually. What doesn't appear to be very good right now is his own confidence, is his own kind of pitching mental state.

Now, Andrés Muñoz, after—or before the game on Thursday—spoke to the media and said, "I need to find myself." Brad Adam spoke on the Mariners TV broadcast about how Andrés Muñoz was really down on himself. That, to me, that's the bigger issue...

And it doesn't matter if you're in the big leagues or you're in little league. If you are a thinker, then you have the ability to get inside your own head, and inside your own head is a very dangerous place to be."

Confidence is a huge part of the game, and if you don't have it, that can trump having great stuff or a great skillset. Munoz is going to need a positive outing, and then he's going to need to stack them on top of each other, in order to get back in the right frame of mind.

We spoke more about this on a bonus episode of 'Refuse to Lose' on Friday with ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney. You can listen to that here.

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