It has to be hard to be Emerson Hancock. He’s a guy with earnest potential and prodigious baseball talent (certainly compared to 99.999% of humans who will never play even mid-level professional baseball, much less make the Majors). But he’s the 6th guy on a rotation with merchandise that says “Oops, All Aces” and really means it. He’s the fill-in man for not only the best rotation in baseball, but possibly one of the best rotations in a generation.

Last year, he finished 4-4 with a 4.75 ERA. Given that Logan Gilbert couldn’t even secure a winning record, that’s not terrible. And while a 4.75 ERA isn’t even decent by Mariner standards, it would make for a serviceable 4th starter on many rotations, several of whom resort to “Bullpen” as their 5th starter by season’s end.

But Emerson Hancock was not ready yesterday.

It will sound like hindsight, but when I saw the above image of him emerging from the bullpen and warily shaking hands with his Mariner teammates on the way to the mound, I knew trouble was brewing. I’m not going to say I knew 6 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning trouble was brewing, but he looked genuinely scared to be there. At the time, I just thought it was jitters in overdrive, but after watching him surrender the aforementioned six runs, I realize that he may have known his stuff was wildly off in the bullpen session and been terrified he was about to hand the Tigers their first win before his teammates could even grab a bat. Which is exactly what happened.

I had remembered him having more blow-up starts early in the year last year than he actually did. I think I was particularly scarred by his 8 ER in 3 1/3 on April 7 at Milwaukee, a game that sent us to 4-6 where we looked thoroughly overmatched in the Major Leagues altogether. This was after an okay start against Cleveland where he got the win on some strong run support and before a string of 3 straight quality starts to close April before he got shelled in May and was returned to Tacoma. He had to return in late September when our season was on the line and was much better overall, at least in outcomes – the Mariners won his 3 September starts, all against division opponents (two, crucially, against Texas).

So can he bounce back? Sure, absolutely. Will I be terrified in a week when he takes the hill if he’s still in the rotation? You betchya.

The highlight of this game was the offense.

I’ll say it again: the highlight of this game was the offense.

We hit 3 homers (a season high) scored 6 runs (a season high), and somehow got the tying run to the on-deck circle at least once in a game that opened 6-0.

Put it this way: you take out Hancock’s 2/3 of an inning and we win 6-3 on a bullpen day. Hot diggity!

That’s not how games work, of course, so we lost by 3 on our biggest offensive day of the year so far. Sometimes it be that way. Just hopefully not often, or maybe ever again this year? It would feel like a waste if we never had glorious comebacks in games like this that make it all feel worthwhile. Just because we were short yesterday, well… Let’s just say with Cy Young going on Wednesday, we’d best win today with our own Cy Young candidate back on the mound.

Mariners Stats:
Comeback Wins: 2
Comeback Losses: 1
Wire-to-Wire Losses: 2

Multi-Homer Games: 1-1
Single-Homer Games: 1-0
No-Homer Games: 0-2

One-Run Games: 1-0

Personal Stats:
Watched on TV: 1-3
Mixed TV/Radio: 1-0