Leody Taveras broke up Parker Messick’s no-hitter in the ninth inning Thursday, sending a soft but clean single into right field against the Orioles and denying a bid that had held through eight innings. It was the kind of hit that barely looked loud enough to change a game, but it changed the night all the same.
The single left Taveras 12-for-32 with seven walks on the young season, good for a.375 batting average and a.487 on-base percentage after the game. It also served as a small, tidy reminder that the version of Taveras showing up in Baltimore is not the same player the Mariners paid $3.7 million for in 2025, when he produced -0.6 WAR for Seattle.
That split matters because Taveras’ 2025 with the Mariners was rough in almost every way that counts. He played 28 games for Seattle, hit.174, struck out 27 times and walked three times. His final WAR output with the club was second-worst on the team behind Rowdy Tellez, and Seattle designated him for assignment before he cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Tacoma.
The stop in Tacoma looked more like the player Taveras had been advertised to be. He finished with an.804 OPS in 81 games for the Rainiers, then signed a major league deal with the Orioles for $2 million in free agency. Baltimore needed him because Tyler O'Neill’s injury pushed Taveras into an everyday center field role, giving him a chance to play regularly and, at least so far, to produce more like a major league regular than a reserve searching for his swing.
That is why Thursday’s single carried more weight than a normal ninth-inning bloop. Mariners fans have reason to wonder whether the current version of Taveras is the same player they watched last year, when the production cratered in Seattle and the swings seemed to disappear under the weight of the numbers. Now he is back in the majors, making contact, drawing walks and forcing the question the Mariners could never answer for him: whether the version they had in 2025 was the real one, or just the worst stretch of a player who needed a different uniform to look like himself again.
