CHICAGO (AP) — When it comes to life on the road, the Seattle Mariners are making themselves right at home.
Seattle is on top of the AL West, and its 14-9 road record is a big reason. It is 4-1 on a 10-game trip after it finished with four hits in a 1-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night.
A victory on Wednesday would secure Seattle's seventh consecutive winning road series. It's the first time the Mariners have won at least six straight road series since they had a streak of eight in a row from July 3 to Aug. 23 in 2023.
"We treat every single game the same, but obviously, when you're on the road, you're like the bad guys. Nobody likes you,” center fielder Julio Rodríguez said after Monday night's 5-1 victory at Chicago. “I guess that adds a little bit more to us. We stick together pretty well as a team and I think that might play something into it.”
Pitching helps, too. Seattle has a 3.60 road ERA, ranking fifth in the majors. It allowed one run in each of the first five games on its current trip.
The Mariners also have a dominant closer in Andrés Muñoz, who hasn't allowed an earned run in 20 2/3 innings this season. The bases were loaded when he entered Monday night's victory, and he struck out Michael A. Taylor for his 15th save.
“Pitching is kind of what's built our (organization), and kind of where our success has started,” catcher Cal Raleigh said. “It's one of the most important things in the game. We do a good job of getting those guys rolling and try to piggyback off of them.”
The strong start on the road comes after Seattle struggled outside of T-Mobile Park in 2024. It finished with a 36-45 road record while going 85-77 last year, contributing to the team's second-place finish in the AL West behind Houston.
Asked about the team's road success this season, manager Dan Wilson praised Muñoz and the rest of the team's bullpen. But he also highlighted the importance of timely offense.
“I think, offensively, being able to strike early on the road is important, and so far as we’ve started off this season, they’ve been able to do that,” Wilson said. “I think that’s put us in good positions to win late in the ballgame.”
Seattle brought up right-hander Casey Lawrence from Triple-A Tacoma on Tuesday. Left-hander Jhonathan Díaz was sent down, and infielder Austin Shenton was designated for assignment.
The 37-year-old Lawrence pitched five innings of one-run ball in the loss to the White Sox. He is 1-2 with a 4.08 ERA in six big league appearances this year.
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Seattle Mariners' J.P. Crawford, left, celebrates with Julio Rodríguez, right, after they defeated the Chicago White Sox in a baseball game in Chicago, Monday, May 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “there will be very serious retaliation” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blames on the Islamic State group.
“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said in a social media post.
The American president told reporters at the White House that Syria's president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “devastated by what happened” and stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump, in his post, said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”
U.S. Central Command said three service members were wounded in an ambush Saturday by a lone IS member in central Syria. Trump said the three “seem to be doing pretty well.” The U.S. military said the gunman was killed.
The attack on U.S. troops in Syria was the first with fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.
“There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, said the civilian killed was a U.S. interpreter. Parnell said the attack targeted soldiers involved in the ongoing counter-terrorism operations in the region and is under active investigation.
The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.
Syria's Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.
Later al-Baba clarified that the attacker was a member of the Internal Security force in the desert adding that he “did not have any command post" within the forces nor was he a bodyguard for the force commander.
Al-Baba added in an interview with state TV that some 5,000 members have joined Internal Security forces in the desert and they get evaluated on weekly basis. He added that three days ago, an evaluation was made for the attacker and it turned out that he might have extreme ideology and a decision was expected to be issued regarding him on Sunday but “the attack occurred on a Saturday which is a day off for state institutions.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”
The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.
The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with Trump. It was the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and came after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assads’ rule.
Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar Assad in December 2024 and was named the country’s interim leader in January. Al-Sharaa once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.
IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.
U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.
Mroue reported from Beirut and Seung Min Kim from Washington.
An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect reference to Iraq.
President Donald Trump talks to reporters as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Washington, en route to Baltimore to attend the Army-Navy football game. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
