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Don’t call it a debut. Since his family didn’t come to see this, Kade Anderson says his first game action as a member of the Mariners’ organization doesn’t count as a debut. But whatever noun you use to describe it, the adjective is “impressive.”
Using a fluid, repeatable delivery, Anderson sat 94-95 with his fastball, freezing up hitters while his slider looked sharp in the zone and induced whiffs outside it, all setting up a changeup that got some Matt Brash-esque swings and misses.
Anderson struck out the very first batter he saw on three pitches. Whiff on a fastball, whiff on a changeup, freeze on a fastball. The victim? Xander Bogaerts, hardly a guy off the backfields. Interrupted by an infield base hit that should have been an out and a full-count walk, Anderson completed the inning by striking out the side. That first inning featured 18 pitches, 13 for strikes, with seven whiffs on ten swings and a 100% first-pitch strike rate.
He came back out for the second, which opened with back-to-back hits. Since both of those runners scored after Anderson was pulled, his final line won’t jump off the page, but Anderson showed every bit of the potential that’s had us salivating since he fell to the Mariners with the third pick of last summer’s Draft.
Cal Raleigh was effusive: “Very impressive. So he can locate the ball, he can command it, he can throw off-speed in the zone for strikes. There’s not…I mean there’s going to be a learning curve, for sure, he was just a little picky around the zone, but for the most part I thought he threw the ball great, especially for the first time out.” (In an extremely Cal move, he used the opportunity to take a potshot at his bro to provide additional context on Anderson’s performance, “I think Logan gave up 10 runs in his first spring training game.”)
Perhaps because he didn’t consider it a debut, Anderson says he wasn’t nervous. “I think you’d be surprised. It’s just another game for me. And when you have that mindset, it makes it much easier on yourself, you don’t get as many nerves.” In the comments, please rank the BS on a scale of 1-10. I’m leaning toward a 4.
Unfortunately for those in attendance, as Anderson got pulled, someone called Houston Roth, who I have definitely heard of before, quickly let all the air out of the room that Anderson had just filled, letting the Padres score a decisive five runs.
But the game got interesting again as Emerson Hancock came out for the third and pitched a 1-2-3 inning, showing the extra velo he’d flashed in his relief appearances last summer. The Mariners plan to begin the season with Hancock as a depth starter, so whether he can hold that extra velo will be a key question. He kept it in his second inning of work, wherein he struck out the side in order, but lost it a bit in an attempt at a third inning. Even so, he was 94-96 in that third inning of work, which, while not 97s of his first inning, is still a couple ticks above where he’s been before.
More promising to me is his slider. He’s got an interesting history with the pitch. In 2023, he was averaging 87 with it, but only getting 30 inches of break. He made an adjustment that offseason and swapped some velo for movement, making it a much better whiff-generator in 2024 and 2025. But what he’s shown so far this spring has been a marriage of the 2023 velo with the 2024-2025 movement. It’s a promising development for a guy whose fastball is coming in harder, and whose sweeper was getting all the praise from Jerry Dipoto on the broadcast. To be sure, I’ve been burned too many times by Emerson Hancock seeming to improve, but Emerson Hancock seems to have improved.
Other Notes
- In the battle for the fourth infield spot, Ryan Bliss had a bad day in the field, missing his landing on one play and showing his noodle arm in another, resulting in two infield base hits that could have been outs. He made up for it a bit with a walk at the plate. Colt Emerson was 0 for 2.
- Luke Raley accounted for the Mariners’ sole run today with his first dinger of the spring, which went to the deep part of the park.
- I would make fun of a new entry in the Randy Arozarena defensive canon, but it’s his birthday, so he gets a pass.
- Cal Raleigh had an unremarkable day except that he’s the first man to play nine full innings this spring, prepping his body for the WBC, which he departs for this afternoon.
- The first Sun Hat Award of 2026 (the award for a noteable contribution to a game I recap) goes to Hancock.