Long time coming

As predicted yesterday and as doubted two weeks ago, they did it. Your Seattle Mariners are officially champions of the American League West for the fourth time ever and first time in 24 years. They clinched with a win that seemed inevitable from the get-go, with starting pitcher Luis Castillo turning in his best game of the year—perfect through 71/3 innings save for one pitch to Colorado DH Don't-Call-Me-Trent Crim that went over the center field fence for a solo homer—and Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez hitting back-to-back homers in the first inning that was just the start of an eventual 9-2 drubbing of the worst team in the Majors.

Cal added a second bomb in the eighth inning to cap the Mariners' offense for the night, his 60th home run of the year. Cal is now the seventh player in Major League history to reach the 60 HR milestone and just the fourth to do it without the taint of a steroid scandal. He has four games remaining to catch/surpass AL record-holder Aaron Judge's mark of 62.

It was a lot of fun tonight. The energy at the ballpark was intense, the Seattle players were clearly fired up, the postgame celebrations were a hoot, and Raleigh again got on the PA and swore, declaring the team's intention to "win the whole fuckin' thing."

The remaining drama of the season is for the final two playoff berths and postseason tourney seeding and I include the following mostly for my dad to understand the calculus.

The Mariners now have 89 wins. The AL East-leading Yankees have 90. The Blue Jays also have 90, but only one of them will be a division winner, the other will be a Wild Card team. The Red Sox have 87 wins and could conceivably overtake the Yanks/Jays in the last four games if all went their way. The Yankees have the easiest opponents left, with one more vs. the White Sox and three vs. Baltimore, while the Jays have one more against the Red Sox and three vs. the Rays. Boston has three against the imploding-but-still-formidable Detroit Tigers after their one more against the Blue Jays. The odds are against the M's finishing with the top record even if they win all four remaining games, but they could if they do sweep and the Yankees and Blue Jays each do no better than split their final four.

The race for the second seed, assuming the M's fail to surpass the eventual East winners, is down to the M's and the Cleveland Guardians, but only one more Mariner win/Guardian loss would assure Seattle of no worse than the second seed and a spot in the Division Series, skipping the Wild Card round.

My rooting interests the rest of the way, aside from obviously pulling for that Mariner magic to continue with four more wins, is for the Yankees to lose three or more times, the Blue Jays to lose two or more times but one fewer than the Yankees, and the Red Sox to lose all four (making the Blue Jays the East champs at no better than 92 wins, the Yankees a WC team, and the Red Sox potentially but unlikely out of the mix). The Central division is more interesting with Cleveland a game up on Detroit; I'm pulling for Detroit to win their last four, one of which is against Cleveland, and for the Guardians to drop at least one of their last three vs. Texas. That would let Detroit salvage a division title from their epic September collapse and relegate Cleveland to the final WC spot unless Houston were to sweep their last four and Cleveland to drop two of the three vs. Texas.

It's all so complicated. :)

The National League now has both top seeds established with Milwaukee and Philadelphia; the NL West could still go to either the Dodgers or Padres—though the Pads are running out of time—and the Wild Card round will feature those two plus the Cubs and one of the Mets (81 wins), Reds (80), or Diamondbacks (80). Whoever gets that last slot will be one of the worst teams by record to ever make a postseason; the 2005 Padres and 1973 Mets share the dubious honor of worst postseason team with just 82 wins (maybe the Padres get it alone since the Mets had a rainout not made up so had one fewer loss), a few teams have gotten in with 84 (including the 2023 NL champion Diamondbacks, thanks to the current stupid system). I guess I'd prefer the Reds get that last berth, but whatever; whoever it ends up getting it should on principle get bounced out immediately.

Elizabeth, Karen, and I enjoy the evening. Karen for some reason has on her I'm-tough-don't fuck-with-me face on, but really, she was giddy.