​Aug 5, 2026; Seattle, Washington, USA; Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (29) is hit by a pitch during the seventh inning against the Detroit Tigers at T-Mobile Park. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect Tonight some friends of mine are marking one year of dating with a celebration at our regular karaoke night where everyone was encouraged to write a love note and put it in a “love box” to be read from in between songs at karaoke – where everyone is, of course, encouraged to sing love songs. I did not get to go to this celebration, because instead I was watching the Mariners play the Tigers, which was definitely not a lovefest. Instead, the game devolved into the Mariners’ first brawl of the season, while also evolving to a 4-2 Mariners win. I don’t have room for 69 Love Songs, but I do have room for nine innings’ worth of love songs.(I originally thought I’d use only songs from the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 triple album 69 Love Songs for this recap, but honestly? A lot of those songs that would be thematically appropriate for this game are, unfortunately, filler. So we improvise.)Love Is StrangeAppropriately enough on Jimothy Night, honoring our local PNW cryptid, tonight’s game was weird. Bryan Woo gave up as many hits as he did hit by pitches (3), which is also how many HBP he had in the entire 2024 season. But Woo also went seven shutout innings, furthering his extreme home-road splits, thanks to the Tigers’ uber-aggressive approach, and was cruising with a low pitch count for most of the game, outside of one inning where the Tigers definitely should have scored and then just…didn’t, thanks to some incredible outfield defense from [checks notes] the Mariners corner infielders? The benches also cleared in this game, although appropriately enough for these two teams no punches were thrown, making it more of an energetic on-field discussion. So yeah. Weird game. Jimothy approves.Autumn LoveAs the sun sets on summer and turns to autumn, it feels like so too is the sun setting on the Mariners’ chances in the division. The vibes today were not great following an 8-0 drubbing by the Tigers last night which many were calling “the worst loss of the season (so far)”. And for the first few innings, it felt like the Mariners were going to continue their offensive somnambulism into this game. It might have been a bullpen game for the Tigers, but Drew Anderson looked plenty capable of putting the Mariners down early, despite some pressure from the new guys in the bottom of the third, as Brendan Donovan and Taylor Ward checked in with back-to-back groundball base hits, unfortunately quickly erased by an inning-ending GIDP from the normally-steady Cole Young. The only other Mariner who got anything off Anderson was Julio Rodríguez, who worked a 1-2 count into a walk to lead off the second (before getting erased on a first-pitch swing GIDP from Josh Naylor) and in the fourth, beat out a t