The Seattle Mariners, to be frank, don’t have a history of success. From their inception in 1977 to the gut-wrenching end of their 2021 season, the M’s only made the playoffs four times: 1995, 1997, 2000, and 2001. But as of last night, thanks to a Cal Raleigh pinch-hit, walk-off, playoff-clinching home run (the first of its kind in MLB history, per ESPN), that playoff berth counter can go up another digit. On Friday, September 30th, the Seattle Mariners beat the Oakland Athletics by a final score of 2-1 in nine innings, guaranteeing them an AL Wild Card spot and snapping the longest (previously active) postseason drought not just in baseball, but in all of American professional sports. The Mariners officially have a chance to make the franchise’s first World Series, which would make Major League Baseball the first of the Big 4 American sports leagues to have all of their franchises make the championship round.
To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to write about for this post, as I type these words at a local Starbucks near my New York City apartment on Saturday morning, just a couple of hours before they’ll be published (meta, right?). I’ve bashed Albert Pujols’s decade-long haloed absence from baseball too much to laud his 700th career home run (even though it’s not a stretch to call him one of the best to ever swing a bat, but he would’ve topped 762 had he stayed in St. Louis) and in my last post, I already dissected the Aaron Judge vs. Shohei Ohtani MVP debate by using Babe Ruth as a common denominator, and I don’t want to go back-to-back with the same topic, even though Judge just tied Roger Maris at 61 single-season home runs and Shohei just almost pitched a no-hitter.
But then the Mariners happened. Needing a victory or an Orioles loss last night for Seattle to clinch a playoff spot, I sat dismayed as Oswaldo Cabrera struck out looking on a questionable inside pitch from DL Hall that ended the Yankees chances of overcoming a 2-1 O’s deficit in the ninth. That meant that the Mariners, who were tied with the A’s at one apiece when the Orioles-Yankees game ended, would need to really win in order to win the ultimate prize for any baseball team: October baseball. The last time the Mariners had clinched a playoff spot, the September 11th attacks were a few weeks away. Alex Rodriguez was living it up as the richest athlete in the U.S. as a member of the Rangers after leaving the Mariners in free agency, while Ken Griffey Jr. was enjoying a reunion of sorts with his hometown, fatherly Reds after a trade sent him to Cincinnati after the 2000 season. The 2001 Mariners, led by AL Rookie of the Year and AL MVP Ichiro Suzuki, would go on to win an AL-record 116 games, lose the ALCS to the 9/11-stricken Yankees, then never make the playoffs for the next two decades.
Ichiro was the only bright spot on a Seattle team that had very little to cheer about when I started watching baseball in 2007. As the Japanese legend continued to set hitting records in Seattle, soon Felix Hernandez joined the M’s pitching staff, winning a Cy Young Award in 2010 and pitching the last perfect game in the Majors in 2012. The Mariners always had lovable stars as I moved from middle school to high school to college, but could never field a team of complete winners. In 2014, Seattle finished with a record above .500 for the first time since 2009, but still couldn’t fit atop the AL West throne or steal either of the Wild Card spots. I’ve seen the AL West change pretty dramatically over the years. The Angels team that faced the Yankees in the 2009 ALCS was quite formidable, as well as the Rangers teams that won back-to-back AL pennants in 2010 and 2011 (but couldn’t finish the job in either World Series). The Billy Beane-led A’s were always scrappy and would win a Wild Card berth here or there, while the late-2010s Astros quickly evolved into one of the scariest dynasties any baseball fan can say they’ve ever seen. The Mariners could never find a way to scrunch their way into an already-crowded AL playoff bracket, especially within the last couple of years, even though they’ve fielded good teams. In recent memory, it seemed as though the AL was extremely predictable, and the Mariners could never fit into those predictions.
Then in 2021, it all started to click. The Mariners finally had a good enough team to make a run at a playoff spot, but missed the chance to play in October by two games. Still, a 90-win team is undoubtedly good, and the Mariners were ready to go all in for ’22. Robbie Ray joined the pitching staff as a free agent, while Adam Frazier, Jesse Winker, and Eugenio Suarez came to the PNW through preseason trades. Julio Rodriguez, Logan Gilbert, and George Kirby established themselves as the future of the Mariners, while Ty France and J.P. Crawford enjoyed breakout seasons. Luis Castillo came over in a big Trade Deadline deal that told the rest of the league that Seattle meant business, joining a pitching staff that boasted quality starters and one of the best bullpens in baseball. The 2022 Mariners started off sluggishly, but caught fire midway through the season and never looked back. Now, we’ll see them play for more than just a participation trophy. They can win the whole damn thing.
I know I haven’t watched baseball for that long a time. I was eight when I got MLB Power Pros 2007. From the ages of zero to seven, you could say that my biggest fandom was elephants (not the A’s mascot, I just really loved elephants). But ever since I put that arcade-style baseball video game into my Nintendo Wii, I’ve thought about baseball every single day of my life. And for all that time of baseball occupying every one of my brain’s synapses, never have I been able to say that the Seattle Mariners are playoff-bound until now. I can’t fully comprehend how excited I am to watch a roster that all of baseball have grown to love over the past two years duke it out with the giants of the American League in search of that coveted pennant. Congratulations to the Seattle Mariners and the city of Seattle on this achievement. I know some Yankees fans can get preoccupied with the winning side of sports, but for me, baseball is all about the 162-game storied journey rather than the superficial destination, and what a story this season has been for the Emerald City.
I think to celebrate, I might play MLB Power Pros again. I might even play the Franchise Mode that I have saved with, who else, but the Seattle Mariners. Even back then, I knew they’d be special someday. Today’s finally that day. #SeaUsRise
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