Major League Baseball’s rivalry weekend concludes in the Pacific Northwest on Sunday Night Baseball with an interleague matchup between the Padres and Mariners. The teams met last month with San Diego winning all three games.
Despite being below .500 entering this series the Mariners are in the hunt in the weak AL West. They’ll have to move ahead without last year’s AL MVP runner-up Cal Raleigh, who was placed on the IL earlier in the week.
Padres at Mariners Game Preview
The final game of a 3-game interleague weekend series between San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners is scheduled to be played on Sunday, May 17, 2026 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, WA. First pitch will be delivered at 7:20 p.m. ET with the game streaming on Peacock.
- Don’t be surprised if the Padres are caught looking ahead with their first meeting against the Dodgers taking place in LA on Monday night. A recent funk by the Boys in Blue allowed the Pads to take over first place in the NL West for a time.
- The Padres entered Thursday’s get-away game with the second best road record in the majors winning nearly 65 percent of their games. However they lost that contest in Milwaukee falling to 12-8 in away games.
- San Diego has been winning games despite an offense that has yet to get on track. They are among the worst in MLB in batting average and OPS and rank in the bottom half in home runs. They average less than 4.9 runs per game and have gone UNDER the total on the MLB spread in 7 of their last 8 games.
- A big reason for San Diego’s offensive woes is that their top players have underperformed. Manny Machado is hitting .115 over his last 15 games and is under the Mendoza line for the season. Fernando Tatis Jr. has yet to hit a home run and Jackson Merrill is at .215.
- The Mariners have had their difficulties at the dish and things took a turn for the worse during their series in Houston. The M’s won three of four games but also lost Cal Raleigh to an injury. Raleigh had 60 homers last season and has clubbed at least 30 in each of the last three campaigns.
Staff ace George Kirby is expected to close out the series for Seattle on Sunday. Over his last 6 starts he’s 4-0 with a 2.43 ERA with just one home run allowed in 37.0 innings. Kirby does allow base runners with a high 1.30 WHIP. The M’s won five of Kirby’s six most recent starts.
Padres at Mariners Predictions
- Both teams rank among the top 10 in MLB in bullpen ERA making things harder on the offense in the later innings. Seattle is second with 3.08 ERA but relievers have combined to lose 11 games, second-most in baseball. Both bullpens have blown seven save chances as well. San Diego’s Mason Miller is the premier closer in baseball converting all 13 save chances.
- You expect San Diego’s hitters to get hot at some point and Kirby has pitched around trouble. He doesn’t get hurt by the long ball, allowing only four homers all season and none in his last four starts. That tends to keep the scores making the UNDER a smart play.
Padres at Mariners Betting Tips
- They’ve struggled on offense but the Padres have come up big in late innings scoring the second most runs from the 7th inning on.
- San Diego has played UNDER the closing total on the MLB betting line in 57.1 percent of its games, third highest in MLB.
- Seattle is 5-1 in the last six games started by George Kirby.
Padres at Mariners Head to Head and Key Stats
- The Padres swept a 3-game series last month in San Diego staging a dramatic 5-run ninth-inning comeback in the middle game.
- Prior to that earlier series the Mariners had won 12 of 15 games, including six of eight in Seattle.
- The teams have cashed the UNDER in six of the last 9 meetings.
- San Diego won the last two games in the series started by Kirby outscoring Seattle 17-6.
