Rob Refsnyder’s start with the Seattle Mariners has gone from useful to urgent. The 35-year-old veteran is in a deep slump, going 0-for-16 with nine strikeouts over his last seven games and 2-for-31 with 16 strikeouts over his last 15.
The numbers are jarring because Seattle brought in a player who, at times this season, has already looked like more than a stopgap. Refsnyder has had a web gem catch and a game-winning homer for the Mariners, but those moments have not kept his bat from disappearing. He has two hits in May and is hitting.101 in 2026, with just seven hits in 69 at-bats and two home runs.
The contrast with what he did in Boston only sharpens the story. Refsnyder appeared in 93 games for the Red Sox in 2024 and hit.283 with 11 home runs and 40 RBI, production that made him look like a dependable platoon bat and professional hitter. Boston lost him to Seattle in free agency over the winter, and the Mariners signed him on Dec. 22 to a one-year, $6.25 million deal.
That move was supposed to add a veteran right-handed presence to a lineup that could use one. Instead, Refsnyder has spent much of the season trying to find the timing and comfort that once made him so useful, especially against left-handed pitching. In one recent stretch, he got three cracks against a left-handed starter and struck out all three times, a snapshot of how little has gone right at the plate.
Refsnyder has played for seven different franchises, and the adjustments that come with changing teams are nothing new to him. This one, though, has been different. The Mariners have seen the occasional flash — the catch, the homer, the kind of moment that suggests a veteran still has something left — but the overall line has dragged too far for the highlights to cover it up.
The next step is simple enough to name and hard enough to solve: Seattle needs Refsnyder to turn the kind of at-bat that can steady a season, because the longer the slump lasts, the harder it becomes to treat him as anything other than a short-term bet that has yet to pay off.
