Mariners clinch, sort of

With a dramatic come-from-behind rally in the home half of the eighth inning, Your Seattle Mariners defeated the Colorado Rockies tonight. It was the team's 14th win over their last 15 games, which would be the talk of the baseball world if not for the Cleveland Guardians winning their 17th over their last 20 tonight as well, vaulting them into first place in the American League Central division. Stupid Cleveland, always taking the spotlight away from other American cities with their... er... not-on-fire-anymore river and rock-n-roll museum and bridge gargoyles. I guess.

Anyway, good for the Guardians, but that's of lesser importance. What matters is that in beating Colorado tonight the Mariners assured themselves of finishing the season as a playoff team—even if everything goes poorly from here on out, the worst they can do is be the final Wild Card team in the October postseason tournament. It's a rare thing around here, though not quite as rare as Google would have us believe:

It's actually their second trip to the playoffs since 2001, but I suppose you could be forgiven for not remembering that they were a Wild Card team in the first year of the current ridiculous playoff format, 2022, and were bounced out of the Division Series in three straight.

But really they haven't won anything yet. When they win tomorrow (confidence!) they will have won something—that would guarantee them first place in the American League West division, their first division crown since 2001. That's probably what the Google tech was going for, it just was a day early. Probably. It will be the team's fourth AL West title in their 49 seasons in the Majors and keeps them in the running to perhaps, maybe, win their first-ever American League championship and appear in their first-ever World Series.

It almost makes me wish I was still running that other website. Almost. Because odds are extremely high that it would still be a money loser. But it would have made for a pretty fun last couple of weeks to be covering the M's that way and I've thought about that a bit today. I might have had some pieces up about the "lucky mustaches," maybe interviewed that cute family of four all wearing Julio Rodríguez jerseys that I briefly spoke to on the last homestand, had some sort of Cal Raleigh Home Run Tracker as he keeps pushing for the AL record for homers in a season (he's three shy of it with five games left).

And there would have been a piece of some kind about Josh Naylor. The first baseman was a late-season acquisition by the M's and has made all the difference. Without him, it's all but certain that the club would have been eliminated by now. Naylor is having either the best or second-best season of his career, depending on your metrics, holding a .291/.350/.458 stat line with 20 homers and 28 stolen bases to go with surprisingly good defensive range and agility at first base. As soon as the season ends for the M's, they should make it a top priority to extend/re-sign Naylor for next year, as he'll be a free agent after the World Series. Raleigh may well win the Most Valuable Player award for the American League this year, but Josh Naylor has been the most valuable Mariner down the stretch.

Things are still really bunched up in the standings, so even though only two of 12 playoff slots are still up for grabs, the seeding is a bit of a free-for-all as the last five games get started. Assuming the M's win at least three more games and/or the other playoff teams lose a few, they'll be in what a couple of weeks ago looked to be the near-impossible position of having either the first or second seed in the tournament, meaning they go directly to the Division Series without having to face a Wild Card team first. I know there are some who think skipping the WC round is a detriment, as the rest allows for the adrenaline and "momentum" a team might have to fade, but given the minor injury ace pitcher Bryan Woo suffered the other day, I want the team to get the rest. Plus, after this amazing end of the campaign it would be ignominious to be bounced out by a lowly Wild Card club.

Right now the WC round would feature Detroit at Cleveland, Boston at the Yankees, the Mets at the Dodgers, and San Diego at the Cubs, but Houston, Cincinnati, and Arizona are all still viable and no team as yet is guaranteed to skip the WC series except the Milwaukee Brewers. A lot can still happen this week.

I'll be at the ballpark tomorrow for the expected division-clincher. Should be fun!