The Arizona Diamondbacks defeat the Mariners, 3-1, on a dusty, desert night

The Seattle Mariners played their first night game of the Spring, but their offense went into a slumber against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Snakes scored three early runs that proved to be all they needed as Seattle sputtered to a 3-1 loss. The slight setback drops the M's to 3-4-1 in the exhibition season thus far.

Luis Castillo made his first start of the spring, pitching 1.1 innings, allowing all three runs on four hits with two strikeouts to take 'the L.' One highlight that stuck out for Mariners' manager Dan Wilson was a second-inning play by Rhylan Thomas, who made a diving catch on a pop-up near the warning track in foul territory.

“Pretty phenomenal play,” Wilson said of Thomas' catch. “I wasn’t sure if he was going to get to it. We saw him make a big catch out in center field yesterday after a long run. When he came up briefly last year for us, he made a nice play in Texas down the line. Defensively, he’s able to run the ball down.”

Mariners veteran Luis Castillo made his first start of the spring Friday and reliever Jose A. Ferrer looked dominant in his inning of work.

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For the Diamondbacks, AJ Vukovich went deep against starting pitcher Castillo to right-center field for a 3-run home run. That's all the offense that the Snakes needed as the Seattle bats went to bed early on Friday night.

Jose Ferrer looked solid against Arizona

Lefty reliever Jose Ferrer, acquired over the offseason in the trade that sent Harry Ford to Washington, had a promising performance. He worked a 1-2-3 fifth inning with a strikeout, hurling 14 total pitches with 10 of them being strikes. Ferrer is expected to team alongside fellow southpaw Gabe Speier to form a 1-2 portside punch in the 'pen.

“He’s got two pretty good off-speed weapons — the slider, and then that changeup too," Wilson commented. "We wanted to get some confidence in both of those and he threw a lot of them tonight. I thought they looked really good. When you can throw 98 mph with some sink and then counteract that with a couple of good off-speed pitches, you are going to get a lot of people out.”

The Mariners will play at the Peoria Sports Complex on Saturday afternoon, but as the road team against their co-tenants, the San Diego Padres. Kade Anderson, Seattle’s first-round pick in 2025 (No. 3 overall) will make his first start as a pro and is expected to throw two innings. Others scheduled to take the hill for Seattle are right-handers Emerson Hancock, Randy Dobnak, Blas Castaño, and lefty Jhonathan Díaz.