Toronto Blue Jays at Seattle Mariners

All the way back in April, Mariners general manager Justin Hollander described the impending situation as the best sort of issue to have. “Truthfully, like, God bless us if it is a problem 30 days from now,” he said, on the day Seattle announced Bryce Miller was ready for a rehab assignment after starting the season on the injured list with a strained oblique. Hollander said that because in Miller’s absence, Emerson Hancock was firing not just at replacement level, but as the Mariners’ best arm. In 2024 and ‘25, Hancock began the year in the rotation due to injuries to other pitchers, but he gave way as soon as they came back. This season, he’d taken the job by the horns and not let go, giving Hollander and the Mariners six real starters and no easy way to cut it down to five. There’ve been piggybacks. There has been a six-man rotation. There have been planned piggybacks, nixed at the last moment. And now, the Mariners’ six starters are showing off their full firepower, all at once. Hancock was just the latest, tossing seven scoreless innings in Seattle’s 4-0 win over Toronto on Sunday afternoon at T-Mobile Park. Hancock whizzed through the Blue Jays’ order early, then he worked around some command issues late, not allowing a hit after the second inning and walking just two -- both in the sixth. It’s the fourth time Hancock has allowed two hits or fewer and two walks or fewer in six innings or more this year, a number that leads the AL and sits second only to Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes. “He just kept doing what he does,” manager Dan Wilson said. “He and \[catcher Mitch Garver\