Mariners’ Bright Idea for a Lost September Is Benching Michael Arroyo and Lazaro Montes

So, this is what we’re doing now? The Mariners benched Michael Arroyo and Lazaro Montes on Wednesday, gave Taylor Ward and Weston Wilson nine combined plate appearances and received zero hits, zero runs and zero RBI from them.

The Mariners still won 7-2, so you know…cool. Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor drove in five runs, while the bullpen covered 4 2/3 scoreless innings. The victory came from the players who actually matter to this roster, not from the veteran lineup choices that kept two Top 100 prospects watching from the dugout.

Ward finished 0-for-5 with three strikeouts. He reached on an error, forced Julio Rodríguez out at home with another ground ball and stranded two runners in scoring position with two outs. His night ended with a called third strike while Rodríguez stood at second.

Wilson went 0-for-3 with a walk. He grounded into a double play in the fourth, then lined into another in the seventh when Josh Naylor was doubled off third.

Ward and Wilson combined to go 0-for-8, and neither Arroyo nor Montes appeared in the game. Seattle led by five runs after the sixth inning and still declined to find either prospect one plate appearance. Would they have gone 3-for-4? Who knows? Maybe that’s precisely why the at-bats mattered.

The 7-2 win improved Seattle to 71-82 with nine games remaining. The Mariners are still 6 1/2 games from the final AL playoff spot with an elimination number of five, and even a perfect finish leaves them at 80-82.

The win moved the math, but it doesn’t change what these games should be used for. Wednesday’s lineup had J.P. Crawford leading off, Randy Arozarena hitting second, Ward in right field and the 31-year-old Wilson at third base. Arroyo, Montes and Brock Rodden all sat. That lineup was built to preserve a present that no longer exists.

We don’t have to exaggerate the contract situation to explain why it is frustrating. Crawford, Arozarena and Ward are the three pending free agents in the lineup. The problem is the priority. Seattle has 153 games of evidence from this season. They know what their veterans are.

Michael Arroyo and Lazaro Montes Need At-Bats, Not Cameos

The club needs to see how Arroyo’s polished approach holds up against major-league velocity. They need to figure out if his defensive future is at second base, left field or somewhere else entirely. Montes needs repetitions in right field and plate appearances against pitchers who can exploit the holes that minor-league arms could not.

Wednesday offered another perfect opportunity. The Angels started left-hander Yusei Kikuchi. Montes also bats left-handed, but those are precisely the matchups Seattle should be studying now. If the goal is to learn whether he can become an everyday hitter, hiding him from lefties doesn’t tell us anything.

The Arroyo decision is even harder to defend. He bats right-handed, yet Seattle started Dominic Canzone at DH. Obviously, Canzone is no longer a platoon guy, but the favorable matchup was sitting right there. What exactly are we saving these kids for? Or what are we protecting them from?

The Mariners Are Wasting the Only Currency a Lost Season Still Has

A bad September can still give us data. It can tell us which young hitters adjust after the league attacks them differently. It could expose defensive limitations before those limitations wreck next year’s plan. More importantly, we can find out how a prospect responds to failure or carries an ugly at-bat into the next. That information matters more than trying to squeeze out a win to get to 79 or 80.

They already have the book on Crawford, Arozarena and Ward. Any of them could return next year, albeit unlikely, but the organization doesn’t need another two weeks to discover their strengths and limitations. Arroyo and Montes are the unknowns. Those are the players who could alter how Seattle approaches left field, right field and DH this offseason. Those are the players whose performance could create flexibility, or expose another hole that must be addressed. Every start handed elsewhere reduces the amount of information available when those decisions arrive.

Also, it also gives Mariners fans one less reason to watch. Nobody needs Seattle to manufacture fake urgency around an elimination number of five. Fans can see the standings. They know what happened to a season that began with legitimate championship expectations. What they might still tune in to see is Montes launching another ball into outer space. They might want to watch Arroyo grind a pitcher down.

Instead, the Mariners keep asking their fans to watch the same hierarchy preside over the final days of a failed season because spending the summer wasting games wasn’t enough. They need to spend September doing that too. If the Mariners are going to bury 2026, they can at least stop putting 2027 on the bench.

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