Mariners' Emerson Hancock dominates Guardians with six no-hit innings

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Mar 29, 2026

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

In this modern era of baseball where Major League teams and major college baseball programs have “pitching labs” featuring an array of coaches and analysts and state of the art of facilities to hone pitching success.

And seemingly every private indoor pitching facility from Seattle to South Beach features the latest technology like TrackMan or Rapsodo that measures the velocity, spin rate, movement — both horizontal and vertical — and the exact shape of every pitch in real time for instant feedback.

Yet, Emerson Hancock increased his fastball velocity, reworked his sweeper slider and found himself as a pitcher this offseason in rural southern Georgia with none of those advanced trappings to supposed success.

Hell, he didn’t even have a catcher some days.

But that offseason of old-school work, often throwing to a “nine pocket” net on his own, or occasionally throwing to Sam Summerlin, a freshman catcher at Kennesaw State, who was home on Christmas break, helped lay the groundwork of his brilliant performance, Sunday night at T-Mobile Park.

Hancock dominated the Cleveland Guardians on a frigid evening with the roof closed, tossing six scoreless and hitless innings, allowing only two base runners and striking out a career-high nine batters, to lead the Mariners to an 8-0 victory.

Seattle split the four-game series with Cleveland and will open a three-game series with the New York Yankees on Monday.

When Hancock arrived to spring training, there was a noticeable difference in his stuff and command. The velocity on his two fastballs and gyro slider had increased. The break on his slow sweeper had increased from 11 inches to 18 inches. And the increased confidence in himself and his place in the organization and MLB as a whole felt palpable.

“I didn’t have TrackMan or anything like that back home, it was just one of those feel things,” he said.

It felt like he was throwing hard. It seemed like the sweeper was moving a lot.

“I’d ask some guys that were there to watch and see what they thought,” he said. “When I had a catcher I’d ask him, ‘How does that look?’”

He didn’t know until arriving to spring training just how much his velocity increased. But his four-seam seemed to carry through the zone better than it had before and his two-seam had more movement.

“I started throwing harder by not trying to throw hard,” he said. “I stopped trying to force velocity.”

He didn’t know how much the sweeper was moving or how it would play until he took it into games.

“It was more about the grip,” he said. “If you get the seams right, you can really get that ball to kind of catch and break off the plate, which is what I want.”

In the first inning, he hammered a four-seam fastball at 96 mph on the hands of Steven Kwan for an easy groundout. He ripped a 96-mph four-seam fastball past Chase DeLauter for a swinging strike three.

After walking José Ramírez he came back to strike out Kyle Manzardo, getting a swinging first strike on the slow sweeper before coming back with fastballs later in the count. It was the start of a string 13 batters retired in a row. Hancock hit C.J. Kayfus with a misplaced fastball to start the sixth inning. But a perfect 1-1 sinker to Brayan Rocchio was immediately turned into a double play to erase the base runner. When Hancock got Kwan to ground out to second on the 97th and final pitch of his outing, he walked off the mound to a standing ovation from the crowd of 30,800 having held Cleveland hitless for six innings.

Meanwhile his teammates provided plenty of run support after squandering some early scoring opportunities against Guardians starter Slade Cecconi. The Mariners broke the game open with two outs in the fourth inning. Dominic Canzone doubled on a looping flyball to left field that Kayfus couldn’t corral with an awkward sliding attempt. Cole Young worked a walk and Leo Rivas drove in the first run of the game with a single to right.

Brendan Donovan, who had been hit by pitches in his previous two at-bats, did the hitting in his third trip to the plate. He pulled a 1-1 fastball that was above the strike zone just over the wall in right field for his second homer of the season. The three-run blast made it 4-0.

Seattle continued to add one. Randy Arozarena scored Julio Rodríguez with a double to the gap in left center and then scored on Luke Raley’s single to right, ending Cecconi’s outing.

Cooper Criswell, who replaced Hancock to start the seventh, couldn’t keep the no-hit bid going, giving up a leadoff single to DeLauter. But he did pick up a three-inning save, working the final frames scoreless.

________