SEATTLE — In “The Shawshank Redemption,” Andy Dufresne escaped from Shawshank State Prison through the incomprehensible stink of a prehistoric sewer pipe. As Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding — played by Morgan Freeman — famously narrated in the 1994 film: “Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of [expletive] smelling foulness I can’t even imagine. Or maybe I just don’t want to.”

There’s no need to imagine.

Mariners fans just experienced something similar.

What better way to describe the excruciating, indefensible, relentlessly disappointing 2026 season? What better way to summarize a demoralizing, six-month descent from World Series favorite to unmitigated failure?

This is not the worst Mariners team in franchise history. Far from it. But it is the most disappointing.

See: the sewer pipe.

For five-plus months, Mariners fans have crawled through a rank river of embarrassments, letdowns and recycled sound bites, with the promise of playoff baseball waiting on the other side. They’ve crawled through an unsavory avalanche of tough-one-tonights, manager Dan Wilson’s tortured tagline.

“Tough one tonight,” Wilson said after four solo homers were wasted in a 6-4 loss to Cleveland on opening day. So it began.

Mariners fans have crawled through a marathonic, backed-up sewer pipe of bad baseball. A 31-47 road record entering Friday’s games. Forty blown leads. Twenty-five losses in one-run games. Ten blown saves by two-time All-Star closer Andrés Muñoz, tied for most in MLB. Fourteen shutouts via a bafflingly broken offense. Ten losses by seven runs or more, including six in an August that melted the Mariners. A 9-2 record against the rival Houston Astros … and a 62-80 flatline against everyone else.

They’ve endured a deluge of unsanitary statistical slop. A .235 batting average with runners in scoring position, 28th in MLB. A minus-51 defensive outs above average metric, last by a wide margin. A 5.31 second-half ERA (27th), 617 total runs (28th) and a .647 OPS against left-handed pitching (also last). Searching for bright spots? In the sewer pipe, you can’t see the sun.

They’ve crawled through an all-you-can-eat buffet of embarrassments. The worst loss in franchise history, a 22-0 Brewers bombardment. Julio Rodríguez’s eighth-inning exclamation point when he tossed a ball into the crowd an out early. A seven-inning, 10-strikeout, one-hit shutout by 42-year-old Max Scherzer, who entered the game with a 7.02 ERA. A pair of five-run, final-inning implosions in walk-off wins by the Padres and Astros. A 50th season celebration appropriately paired with a home sweep by the Tampa Bay Rays, who have had the season Seattle promised.

Heck, when the Mariners unveiled Ichiro’s statue on April 10, his bat was broken.

They’ve crawled through indefinite stretches of stink. The Mariners were one-hit twice in three days (May 17-19) and went two weeks without scoring more than three runs. Catcher Cal Raleigh, who slugged 60 homers a season ago, needed 10 games to escape an unsightly 0-for-38 slump. Just last weekend, they surrendered two walk-off homers in three games against the lowly A’s.

On July 7, 10th-inning ghost runner Weston Wilson tried and failed to take third base on a routine grounder to short, a lethal lapse in a 6-5 loss to the Miami Marlins.

On July 8, second baseman Cole Young declined to challenge the final strike — which was a ball — in another listless 2-0 loss.

On July 10, lightly jogging left fielder Randy Arozarena allowed a foul pop-up to fall at his feet, and Luis Castillo served a karmic homer to Cedric Mullins on the very next pitch. Castillo stared down Arozarena during a fourth consecutive defeat.

There were so many lowlights I literally could not list them all. That’s the point.

But Mariners fans kept crawling. What could they do? There are no shortcuts in the sewer. The only way out is through.

They’ve crawled through failed “fresh starts” — a 7-0 home loss to the Giants to start the second half, then an 8-0 home dud a day after the trade deadline. Through melodramatic handshake and piggyback spats. Through television streaming snafus and Bryan Woo’s ballooning road ERA. Through Dan Wilson’s inability to manage his bullpen or employ a worthwhile platoon. Through limp lineups featuring Rob Refsnyder, Will Wilson, Patrick Wisdom, Stuart Fairchild, Buddy Kennedy and Connor Joe. Through the doomed trade-deadline addition of Taylor Ward, who entered Friday with just nine more Mariners hits than me.

Through, too, a ruthless run of rotten luck. That includes injuries to Raleigh, Rodríguez, Luke Raley, Colt Emerson and almost any leverage reliever. It includes the batting cage beaning and concussion of 2025 All-Star Brendan Donovan, whose season was already snakebit. It includes right fielder Jo Adell’s remarkable trio of home-run robberies in a 1-0 April Angels win.

With World Series dreams and a historically down division, Seattle’s season highlights include a viral raccoon T-shirt giveaway and plastic baskets designed to look like ferryboats. An army of Etsy witches couldn’t lift this curse.

“Can’t remember the last time a baseball team angered me to my core as much as the 2026 Seattle Mariners,” Yahoo Sports’ Jake Mintz posted on social media after Rodríguez misplayed a ninth-inning triple in an August walk-off loss to the Red Sox. “What a monumental waste of talent. The American League stinks and they stink even more! What a vibe dumpster.”

A vibe dumpster. A sewer pipe. Same difference.

The point is, they can smell it outside Seattle.

“I hate the Mariners. I really hate their guts,” The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, noted Boston fan, said on his podcast this week. “I’ve been tweeting about them, and the Seattle Mariners fans, they love it, because they’re like, ‘Finally somebody other than us has noticed what a [expletive] dumpster fire this team is.’

“This is the most unlikable baseball team this year, and somehow I got sucked into them [because of] a fantasy team. I can’t tell you how much anti-joy they brought me this year.”

For five-plus months of anti-joy, Mariners fans deserve acknowledgment, accountability and action. They haven’t gotten it from Wilson, beyond the dripping faucet of tough-one-tonights. They haven’t gotten it from president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto, beyond the inconsequential firing of assistant hitting coach Bobby Magallanes. (With an arm needing amputating, they clipped a fingernail.) They certainly haven’t gotten it from chairman John Stanton, who refuses to replace or improve the sewer pipe.

This week, Mets fans got it from interim manager Andy Green, who flatly acknowledged: “We didn’t take them on a journey to someplace they wanted to go when the season started. That’s what you want as a fan. Season starts, you’re taking me on a journey, and we’re going to do something special.”

The Mariners did take their fans on a journey. They forced them through 500 yards of unappetizing sludge, with the promise of something special waiting on the other side.

It isn’t over yet, but Mariners fans have crawled to freedom … from having to watch the 2026 Mariners anymore. From the kind of season most couldn’t even imagine. Or maybe they just don’t want to.

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