A Mariners `guarantee'

 

I met someone about a month ago who said that he’d given up on the Seattle Mariners. I explained to him (practically a guarantee) that the M’s would make the post-season playoffs in 2025. He said he would start watching them again but would hold me personally responsible if they didn’t make the playoffs.

At the time, I thought he was misled by the media and some fans who seemed to have a fixation with the Mariners catching the Houston Astros. We’d sometimes hear how Seattle dropped a game in the standings to the `trash can bangers,’ with no mention that Seattle still held a wild-card position.

As Red Sox announcer Lou Merloni noted on one of their telecasts, he didn’t pay a lot of attention to who was ahead of Boston in the standings, it’s the teams below you, you want to lose; the important thing is making the playoffs. (Speaking of the Red Sox; Mariner fans were giddy when the Bostonians swept Houston in a three-game series about a month ago. Currently, the M’s trail the Red Sox by 3 ½ games in the Wild Card standings, if the Astros had swept Boston, the Mariners would be a ½ game behind with a game in hand).

After beating the Atlanta Braves on Sunday, and outscoring the Seattle Seahawks in the process- the Mariners scored 18 runs in Atlanta while the Hawks could only muster 13 against the 49ers at home-- the Mariners maintain a 1 ½ game lead over the Texas Rangers for the third wild card. The Rangers have made things interesting in their last 10 games going 7-3 to the Mariners, 5-5.

This coming week could decide a few things with the Mariners having a relatively easy homestand welcoming the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Angels- two fourth-place teams to the friendly confines of T-Mobile Park. Seattle also has three home games with the Colorado Rockies, who’ll finish with the worst record in baseball, the final week of the season.

The Rangers took two-out-of-three from the Astros but their next nine games are also against probable playoff teams- the Milwaukee Brewers with the best record in the majors at home and the New York Mets and Astros on the road.

These head-to-head matchups seem to matter less in baseball, but did we mention the Rangers have nine players on the disabled list and that their best starting pitcher- Nathan Eovoldi- and perennial All-Stars- Corey Seagar and Marcus Semien- may be do e for the season.

If standings positions don’t change, the Mariners would face their arch-rivals, the aforementioned Houston Astros in the first-round of the playoffs. The `Stros and the Toronto Blue Jays were the two teams the Mariners faced in the 2022 playofffs. Toronto has the best record in the American League; perhaps the Mariners would see them at some point.

The cliché about the Mariners in recent years has been that they have the potential to go a long way in the playoffs with their pitching. Cliches are often true, but the M’s starting rotation has been average (and sometimes injured) after being historically good in 2024. Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby will probably be the starters in a playoff series and could be dominant if the stars are aligned.

But as anyone who’s watched the Mariners this season will attest, their hitting has been loads better. The questions from Pacific Northwest fans- how many home runs will Cal Raleigh hit? Will he be the AL MVP? Will this blog ever mention Raleigh’s nickname which has become iconic? Probably not.

We’ll look more closely at the playoff picture as the post-season approaches.