Mariners injury updates as of April 25th, 2025
By Jeffrey Nooney, edited by Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA - Our Seattle Mariners are back home for the first time in eleven days after an amazing East Coast road trip. The Mariners won all three series of the trip as they faced off against the Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox, finishing the road trip with a record of 6-3. As he does before the first game of every homestead, Seattle General Manager Justin Hollander gave the latest updates and notes regarding injured players throughout the Mariners organization. Seattle has dealt with their (un)fair share of injuries so far through the first few weeks of the 2025 season, and they’ll be without some key pieces for a while.
Seattle Mariners second baseman Ryan Bliss during the teams Monday, April 7th, 2025 win against the Houston Astros, a game in which he’d homer, at T-Mobile Park. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo for Circling Seattle Sports)
Infielder Ryan Bliss had surgery to repair a torn left bicep muscle a few weeks ago, and Hollander said that he is currently in Arizona right now to rehab and heal. Back on April 10th, the Mariners put out a press release that said they expect that a full recovery from the injury and surgery will take four to five months, but Hollander said that Bliss will remain in Arizona for the remainder of the season. We likely will not see Bliss until Spring Training in 2026 unfortunately, as a player that appeared to just be getting comfortable at the second base position having won it with a strong Spring has this season ripped away from him due to injury.
“No change on Ryan Bliss’ status. He obviously had surgery and is in Arizona and will continue to work through that process for the remainder of the season unfortunately.”
There are reinforcements coming for the bullpen. Matt Brash has been throwing down in Tacoma and has felt great so far, with the next step for him coming as he’ll be put into more “game like situations” down in Tacoma, such as pivot situations. Seattle will begin to shorten the time between his rehab outings, but that does not mean Brash will be throwing in back to back games when he gets called back to the big leagues. Brash is working his way back from Tommy John surgery, so the Mariners will be methodical with how they use him this season and are sure to be cautious with him in the early part of his time this season at the big league level as Hollander mentioned on a few occasions that things would be vastly different for Matt as compared to his 2023 season. There is still no timetable for his to return to the Mariners, but I would expect him to rejoin sometime next week considering that Hollander said “he’s making great progress and we anticipate that this is the home stretch for his rehab before major league activation.”
“He’s doing great, would anticipate that we’re nearing the final stretch of rehab, which is super exciting.”
Reliever Jackson Kowar will begin his rehab assignment within the next week, likely with the Tacoma Rainiers per Hollander. You may remember Kowar from the Jarred Kelenic trade, but he has yet to throw a pitch for the Mariners as he had Tommy John surgery during Spring Training in 2024, but he is close to throwing again finally as he’s waited patiently through the grueling rehab process of the injury. It will likely be a full 30 day rehab assignment because of the time missed and wanting to get him fully built back up, but Hollander did say that Kowar has had a great attitude throughout the process and has thankfully not had any hiccups throughout the course of his journey back. Another reliever, Trevor Gott, is on a similar progression plan as Kowar and the plan is for Gott to begin his rehab assignment in Tacoma as well. Gott is also recovering from Tommy John Surgery, so we’ve got a few relief pitchers (Brash, Kowar, and Gott) working their way back from the surgery and trying to contribute to the Mariners at some point this season.
Seattle Mariners right handed starting pitcher George Kirby during the teams April 15th, 2024 game against the Cincinnati Reds at T-Mobile Park. (Photos by Kevin Ng for Circling Seattle Sports)
Mariners starting pitcher George Kirby has begun his ramp up to returning to the teams rotation. He is here in Seattle today and threw a bullpen at T-Mobile Park, showing off a rare smile as it appeared that he was just happy to be back around his Mariners teammates after spending the last few months in Arizona due to shoulder inflammation in Spring Training. Should he fell good after today, his next step is throwing live batting practice hopefully on this home stand, but Hollander was not sure on exactly when that could be. After that, he could begin a rehab assignment but there is still no timetable for that quite yet as it all depends on how George is feeling after that bullpen here today. Rehab assignments can last a maximum of 30 days, so it could very well still be a while before we see Kirby pitching at T-Mobile Park.
Reliever Gregory Santos has been struggling so far early into 2025, and we may now know a factor into those poor performances. He was sent down to Tacoma back on April 16th with hopes that his control could improve but alerted the teams medical staff about an issue with his right knee. After getting a second and third opinion on it, it was determined that Santos will require surgery to “clean up the cartilage” in that right knee. He will have the surgery next Tuesday in Chicago. There is no timetable for him to return, but Hollander is optimistic that he will return sometime this season. That will depend on how the surgery goes, but the Seattle general manager did say that they expect to see Santos back this year, so like we have for much of his Mariners tenure it’ll be a wait and see.
“After we optioned him, he let us know that the conservative care that we were working with around his knee was not feeling 100%. We sent him to the doctor, they’re gonna do a cartilage cleanup in his knee.”
Seattle Mariners outfielder Victor Robles during the teams July 24th, 2024 loss to the Los Angeles Angels at T-Mobile Park. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo for Circling Seattle Sports)
As for fun loving outfielder Victor Robles, Hollander delivered some good news with his injury status. Victor Robles suffered a dislocated left shoulder on a catch against some netting down in San Francisco. Although his injury timeline remains the same, recent X-Rays have shown that his fracture is healing on it’s own. Hollander said that the shoulder is not moving as it heals, which means that Robles will not require surgery on the shoulder, which would have kept him out for longer and likely the rest of the 2025 MLB season. This is an injury that can’t be rushed, as a setback would mean he would need surgery that would in turn end his season. Hollander said things are very positive for Victor currently as the X-Rays “look great” and it’s very positive that it appears he won’t need surgery.
On the minor league side of things, outfield prospect Jonny Farmelo will report to High-A Everett on Tuesday, April 26th to resume game action. Farmelo is recovering from a torn ACL in his knee, so this step of getting back into actual games is an important milestone for him. Farmelo will have some restrictions when he reports due to the severity of the injury, as he will not play in every game right away and it will take some time to get back to that workload, including using him as a designated hitter. He will play around four games a week at first before progressing to five and six games down the road. He will play in the outfield some but he will also be used as a designated hitter as well to help ensure that the workload he takes on in returning to game action isn’t too much in his recovery. Farmelo joins fellow 2023 first round picks Colt Emerson and Tai Peete in Everett along with other top prospect Lazaro Montes. You will not have to travel far to watch the future of the Mariners play ballgames this year, as Everett was already a very exciting group before the addition of Farmelo. While it could seem like an aggressive assignment to send him to Everett as he last played with Modesto, you’ll have to note that Seattle has a history of keeping groups of prospects together typically from their respective drafts plus Hollander said that he was on the cusp of being promoted anyway when he got hurt.
Right handed pitcher Taylor Dollard has battled injuries throughout most of his professional career. Once upon a time he was a top pitching prospect for the Mariners, but he hasn’t been able to stay on the field in recent memory unfortunately. Dollard threw a bullpen session today and will begin throwing some live batting practice very soon. Hollander reported that his velocity is coming back and he feels good throwing. Another pitching prospect for Seattle who has battled injury after injury is right hander Teddy McGraw. McGraw has already gone through two Tommy John surgeries and was dealing with yet another setback in his elbow, but he has now been cleared by Dr. Keith Meister to resume his throwing progression. There is still no timetable on when he can return to action, but it’s still of note that McGraw can get into working his way back to a return which starts with that aforementioned throwing progression.
Lastly, outfielder Dominic Canzone came out of a game with the Tacoma Rainiers last week and popped up on the Mariners injured list trackers. Hollander said that he was dealing with some oblique soreness, which doesn’t appear to be serious. Canzone is making progress and improving, swinging at about 75% yesterday and he continues to feel good. The organization doesn’t anticipate and extended absence, but the initial injury did force him to be shut down and put on the injured list because of the soreness in his side.
Not out with an injury but dealing with one, Hollander said that Jorge Polanco is still making progress on his way to swinging the bat from the right side of the plate and eventually playing in the field again. “He’s doing better every day” when discussing how Polanco has been feeling as he deals with the soreness in his side, and said that he’s “on the right path” both to swinging right handed and to playing in the field.
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