SEATTLE – If we’re talking about the number of fans in the ballpark, the Blue Jays have had the edge.

SEATTLE – There was an air of familiarity to the way the Mariners beat the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon before an emotionally charged crowd of 44,921 at T-Mobile Park.

SEATTLE – For a number of reasons, each significant on its own, a Shohei Ohtani trade to Seattle before MLB’s Aug. 1 deadline is not realistic.

SEATTLE – Bruce Bochte isn’t one of those former MLB players who bemoans the modern game and its “look-at-me” practitioners.

SEATTLE – First base was open if the Toronto Blue Jays wanted to intentionally walk him.

SEATTLE – Given the back-and-forth nature of their game s this season, a source of hope for better results ahead and a glaring reason for frustration of results past, it should have been logical to expect the Mariners to pull out a victory on Thursday afternoon, after they’d dropped two straight games to the Twins.

SEATTLE – Jarred Kelenic walked into the Mariners dugout of T-Mobile Park with his head down, and his eyes, already red from tears, fixed on the walking boot on his left foot.

The losses in games and in series are starting to pile up.

Rick Rizzs has forged his nearly five-decade, Hall of Fame-caliber broadcasting career on positivity and enthusiasm. So it’s no surprise that Rizzs’ reaction to his gruesome all-terrain-vehicle accident last week is one of gratitude, not self-pity.

On a night when the Mariners needed their young starting pitcher to give them at least five innings to help a short-handed bullpen, he couldn’t do it, despite his best efforts.

SEATTLE – For the first four innings, the Mariners seemed destined to take a step back in their never-ending dance between a winning and losing record – call it the mambo of mediocrity.