Luis Castillo delivers quality start to help Mariners beat Guardians

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Jun 26, 2026

Published in Baseball

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CLEVELAND — Four runs? Who needs them?

Well, at least for one game, the Mariners didn’t need to reach that seminal number to find victory.

For the 12th straight game, the Mariners were held to three runs or fewer — a dubious streak to be sure.

But they could’ve won the game only scoring two runs thanks to a solid start from veteran right-hander Luis Castillo and lockdown relief work from Jose A. Ferrer, Gabe Speier and Andrés Muñoz.

J.P. Crawford’s infield RBI single in the seventh inning gave Seattle a lead and Julio Rodríguez provided a big insurance run with an RBI single in the eighth as the Mariners rallied for a 3-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night at Progressive Field.

Working without a piggyback situation, Castillo delivered a quality start for the Mariners.

Relying heavily on his slider and using his change-up more than usual, Castillo pitched six innings, giving up one run on four hits with a walk and four strikeouts.

His one run allowed came in the first inning. He allowed a one-out single to former Washington State standout Kyle Manzardo and gave up a two-out double off the wall in left to Kahlil Watson.

Castillo didn’t allow another run or multiple base runners in an inning the rest of the way.

He got some help from his defense with Josh Naylor making a difficult inning-ending catch over the railing of the camera well in the third inning.

Naylor also had a nice scoop on Cal Raleigh’s back-pick to first base to get Brayan Rocchio.

Down 1-0, Colt Emerson, who was born in Ohio and attended multiple games at Progressive Field as a kid, gave his friends and family that made the trip from his hometown of New Concord to Cleveland plenty to cheer about in his first plate appearance.

Emerson took advantage of a misplaced change-up from Cleveland starter Joey Cantillo, yanking a solo homer to right field to tie the game at 1-1.