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The sobering numbers behind Mariners’ historic 22-0 loss to Brewers The Seattle Mariners suffered their worst loss in franchise history Tuesday night, losing 22-0 to the Brewers in Milwaukee. A lopsided loss doesn’t necessarily make it the most heartbreaking — last year’s ALCS Game 7 defeat came by just a one-run margin — but Tuesday’s loss still jumps off the page as one of the worst in Mariners and modern MLB history. The previous worst loss in M’s history was 21-1 to the Astros on Sept. 8, 2019. Those Mariners won just 68 games. Gerrit Cole earned the win for the Astros that night while Félix Hernández was on the bump for the M’s. That season is also a symbol of another black mark on the M’s: It was the year the Nationals made and won their first World Series and set the Mariners apart as the only team to never make it to the Fall Classic. The 22 runs by the Brewers tied the mark for the most runs allowed in Mariners franchise history. They allowed 22 runs to the Red Sox on Aug. 15, 2015, but they’d also scored 10 runs that night. Jackie Bradley Jr. was the star of that game for the Sox and Hernández was taken out of the game after just 2 1/3 innings with 10 earned runs on the three-year anniversary of his perfect game. Those Mariners finished fourth in the AL West with 76 wins. Tuesday’s game also tied an MLB modern era (since 1900) record for the largest shutout win. The other two instances were a Pirates win over the Cubs on Sept. 16, 1975, and Cleveland’s Aug. 31, 2004, win over the Yankees. Both were 22-0 games. The largest shutout victory in any era of MLB was the Philadelphia Quakers’ 28-0 win over the Providence Grays in 1883. Those games all featured actual pitchers pitching the whole time. There may be an asterisk on the record to some because nine of the runs scored while M’s utility player Leo Rivas was on the mound. Rivas, who is not a pitcher, now has an earned-run average of 63.00 after allowing seven earned runs in just one inning pitched. Rivas had pitched three innings over the past two seasons in similar mop-up duty roles with the M’s, but hadn’t given up a single run until Tuesday. The Mariners also came five allowed runs away from the modern margin-of-victory record set by the Rangers in 2007 when they beat the Orioles 30-3 in the first half of a doubleheader. The 1882 Cleveland Blue Stockings own the record for the biggest win ever in MLB with a 35-4 defeat of the Cleveland Blues. For context in other sports, the Super Bowl-winning Seahawks rarely allowed as many as 22 points. The Seahawks played 20 games last year, including the playoffs. In 15 of those games they allowed fewer than 22 points. The Seahawks also lost just three of those games by a combined margin of nine points. The Brewers, owners of the best record in MLB, have allowed 25 total runs over their past seven games. This loss is a historic outlier, but it is also part of a worrying trend for the Mariners who are celebrating their 50th season and were expected by nearly everyone to make another push for the World Series. The Mariners’ run differential has gone from plus-3 to minus-45 since Aug. 3, as pointed out by Ethan Kilbreath on the social media platform X. They’ve allowed 48 more runs than they’ve scored in just 15 days. That big change can be attributed to some big losses to the Tigers in early August and series losses to the Rays and Yankees that slowly chipped away at what was once a positive differential.