Seager's 9th no-no appearance nears record

SEATTLE -- For some, witnessing a no-hitter is the ultimate in-person baseball experience. Before this Year of The No-Hitter, no-nos had been elusive and rare -- a smorgasbord of circumstance, luck and skill, where everything has to go exactly right.

After Corey Kluber went the distance and became the sixth pitcher to throw a no-no this season on Wednesday at Texas, he and Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that they had never been a part of one.

If that sounds like the norm, then Kyle Seager is the extreme exception.

When Seattle was blanked by Detroit’s Spencer Turnbull on Tuesday, it represented the ninth time that Seager, the longtime Mariners third baseman, had been on the field for a no-hitter, which tied him with Reggie Jackson and Felipe Alou for second-most all-time, behind only Bert Campaneris’ 11.

Beyond the frustration of the state of the Mariners’ offense, even Seager acknowledged the rarity despite MLB being one no-hitter shy of tying the all-time record of seven for a 162-game season -- before Memorial Day.

Seager was asked about his place in history one day after being no-hit, following the Mariners’ 6-2 loss to the Tigers on Wednesday, in the context of Kluber going the distance less than 24 hours after Turnbull twirled his gem at T-Mobile Park. But because Kluber polished off his no-no during the first inning of Wednesday’s game in Seattle, Seager was caught a little off guard.

“Oh, I didn't know there was another one tonight,” Seager said. “Yeah, I've been a part of a few of them. My wife told me this morning that I'm like tied for second all-time or something. I don't think that's necessarily the best stat that you want to have. Maybe if it's all [on the winning side], I guess.”

Here are the Mariners pitchers who Seager has backed in no-hitters:

• Félix Hernández (2012)
• Mariners' combined effort (2012)
• Hisashi Iwakuma (2015)
• James Paxton (2018)

And here are the opposing pitchers who have held him and his teammates hitless:

• Philip Humber (2012)
• Angels' combined effort (2019)
• Astros' combined effort (2019)
• John Means (2021)
• Spencer Turnbull (2021)

Seager appreciates the historical aspect, but he also pointed out how much the game has changed since he witnessed his first no-hitters in 2012, his first full season in the big leagues. Entering Wednesday, the .236 MLB-wide batting average this season was the lowest since the mound was lowered in 1969, by a whopping eight points compared to the second lowest in '72. Also, 24.8 percent of all fastballs thrown this season have been 95 mph or faster, compared to 12.2 percent in ’08, when pitch-tracking data was implemented.

“The pitching has been tough this year,” Seager said. “I mean, you see the spike in velo. You see the spike and stuff. There's so much analytics and there's so many, the way they're quantifying everything and all the shifts and everything like that. So the game has definitely changed quite a bit since when I broke in. The pure stuff is different. But I mean, even from a positioning standpoint, from a tactical standpoint, the game is extremely different than the game that I broke into.”

Seager made sure that the Mariners dodged another unfortunate date with history on Wednesday by crushing a first-inning two-run homer, the 84th of his at T-Mobile Park, which broke a tie with Nelson Cruz and Raúl Ibañez for the most in the ballpark’s history.

Did that piece of history mean a little more given the state of the Mariners’ offense right now?

“Well, it was a hit, so that was good,” Seager said. “That was an adjustment from [Tuesday] night. So that was definitely a positive thing. We've been battling a little bit, for sure.”