" 𝔹𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕦𝕟𝕚𝕢𝕦𝕖 𝕚𝕤 𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕓𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕗𝕖𝕔𝕥 "

SEATTLE -- As the clock stretched deep into the afternoon on Wednesday, T-Mobile Park was eerily inaudible. There was no batting bubble over home plate for early BP. The roof was pulled over to halt fall’s first rain, and as such, the grounds crew had already completed its duties. The first players to emerge did so

from the visiting clubhouse and not until later.

Bark at the Park

 

Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images

On the heels of another disappointing Mariners loss the night prior, this emptiness was by design. Manager Scott Servais called for a “show-and-go” day, canceling on-field batting practice and most scouting meetings -- other than one team-wide gathering two hours before first pitch -- in order to "relax a little bit."

Hours later, perhaps the tactic paid off -- or maybe it was that the Mariners performed to the capabilities that they’ve shown all year. Either way, they held on to a 3-1 victory that was as needed as it was timely. Elsewhere, and pardon Robbie Ray’s urging to not scoreboard watch, every team that Seattle needed to

lose did: the Orioles in Boston, the Rays in Cleveland, and the Blue Jays on a historic night for Aaron Judge in Toronto.

Magic number: 3 (postseason berth)

Standings update: 84-70 (third AL Wild Card spot)

Games remaining: 8

AL Wild Card: The Blue Jays lead the Rays by 1.5 games for first berth; the Rays lead the Mariners by 1.0 game for second berth; and the Mariners lead the Orioles by 4.5 games for the third berth (plus tiebreaker).

Seeding battle: Tampa Bay owns the tiebreaker over Toronto (10-9) and Seattle (5-2); Seattle owns tiebreaker over Toronto (5-2) and Baltimore (4-2)

For all the admitted pressing that festered inside the clubhouse 24 hours prior -- and the crippling anxiety from those watching outside of it -- the Mariners find themselves firmly on October’s doorstep. On Wednesday, they could be knocking, and as soon as Friday, their soonest night to clinch, they could burst right

through.

Their playoff odds computed through FanGraphs -- which take into account 20,000 computer simulations -- reached 100 percent for the first time all season. No, they haven’t clinched yet, but it’s as close as can be and that’s what Servais’ show-and-go scheme was intended to accomplish.

Here’s what he said pregame: "Everybody knows what the goal is, and the goal is close enough you can grab it. The key is to go grab it; don't wait for it to come to you. And that's what we need to get back to doing. Being aggressive, being on the attack, go grab it."

And postgame: “In talking to a bunch of different people today at different times and the group meeting, we have a good team. And I've said it over and over, the depth of our team and the reason we're good is because we trust one another -- and that's what you're seeing.”

Wednesday’s win was emblematic of how the Mariners play when they’re at their best.

Eugenio Suárez regained his timing en route to a 3-for-3 night with an RBI double that tied the game after the Rangers took a first-inning lead. Mitch Haniger followed with a sacrifice fly and showed a more patient overall approach. Carlos Santana capitalized in the third with a fielder’s choice that drove home another.

The Mariners manufactured five total hits and drew five walks -- exactly their line in Tuesday’s shutout -- but they were able to cash in.

Eugenio Suárez's RBI Double

KANSAS CITY -- This road trip couldn’t end soon enough for the Mariners.

What was already a trip to forget spiraled into losing a nine-run lead in the sixth inning and falling to the Royals, 13-12, on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. 

Seattle heads home after an abysmal 10-game road trip that took two stars out of the lineup and resulted in seven losses.

“Not a great road trip,” manager Scott Servais said. “Certainly might be an understatement, but this was a tale of two games today. We came out and did a lot of good things offensively and had a commanding lead in the ballgame, and then we let our guard down a little bit and shut it down.”

J.P. Crawford's Two-Run Single

The road trip shut down two of the Mariners’ best players, when Eugenio Suárez (right index finger fracture) landed on the 10-day injured list on Sept. 17, followed by American League Rookie of the Year front-runner Julio Rodríguez (lower back strain) on Friday.

There’s nothing to be done about injuries, but blowing a nine-run lead late in the season is something that the Mariners can only hope doesn’t come back to bite them at the end of the year.

“You just have to flush it out as much as it’s going to haunt us,” shortstop J.P. Crawford said. “The reality of it is you just have to forget about it and remember there are bigger games ahead of us and not dwell on it.”

 Robbie Ray Defeats Luke Weaver in Pregame Standoff

Robbie Ray Defeats Luke Weaver in Pregame Standoff

The sheer force of will and determination.

 

 

 

A Gumbelievable 5th inning

 

Starter Luis Castillo appears to be the No. 1 for the Mariners after signing a five-year extension on Saturday, but he recently hasn’t been the ace they need with the postseason near.

Castillo gave up five runs over 5 1/3 innings on Sunday, allowing seven hits and three walks while fanning five. This comes after allowing four runs over 4 2/3 innings in his last start against Oakland.

“I feel good physically,” Castillo said. “The thing is it was a long inning [right before] and I was on the bench for most of it and I think that affected me.”

Luis Castillo Fans Five

The next three pitchers -- Matt Festa, Matt Brash and Erik Swanson -- allowed a combined eight earned runs in two-thirds of an inning and allowed Kansas City the most runs the club had scored in an inning since 2004.

“Go back to something we talk about all the time, which is controlling the strike zone, and we gave them an opportunity to come back in the game because we didn’t throw strikes,” Servais said. “The momentum gets going and it’s hard to stop when the ball gets rolling down the hill like that.”

A bright spot in the game was Seattle’s offense and patience at the plate. The Mariners took advantage of lackluster pitching in the fifth inning from the Royals, who walked or hit five batters in that inning alone. Nine Mariners contributed an RBI and Crawford, Ty France and Mitch Haniger all had two apiece.

Mitch Haniger's RBI Single

It was quite the contrast to how much of the road trip went, as the Mariners scored one run in five of their past 10 games.

But it’s not easy to replace two of the best bats in your lineup -- Suárez and Rodríguez -- and expect runs to come as naturally.

Servais gave all indications that Suárez should be back by Tuesday or Wednesday and Rodríguez could return for the final home series of the season.

And with the Mariners in a good spot to still make the postseason, getting back to their style of clean baseball is more important than anything else.

“This was a disappointing loss, but we haven’t played good baseball on this trip,” Servais said. “I talked to the team afterward and told them we’ve got to get back to playing [the] baseball we have all year that has allowed us to be in this position.”

Ty France's Two-Run Single

With 10 home games left in the season, the Mariners are within reach of a playoff berth. If the cards fall right, Seattle could host in the American League Wild Card Series as they sit just 2 1/2 games behind Toronto for that spot.

The silver lining in it all is the Mariners are headed back home and hope to clinch their spot into the playoffs in front of their fans at T-Mobile Park in the next week and a half.

“We’ve got plenty left, there's no question about it,” Servais said. “You can’t let a game like today define our season, and it won’t. We will not let that happen.”

Adam Frazier's RBI Double

KANSAS CITY -- On a night when Mariners manager Scott Servais wanted to give catcher Cal Raleigh some rest, that plan had to be modified.

With Seattle down by two in the sixth inning of Saturday’s game against the Royals, it was Raleigh to the rescue. Raleigh came off the bench to hit a game-tying two-run homer and stayed around for a go-ahead RBI double in the ninth that lifted the Mariners to a 6-5 victory at Kauffman Stadium.

“He’s huge for us,” Servais said. “Behind the plate and at the plate.”

Logan Gilbert had been on a roll, with a 1.57 ERA and a 4/1 strikeout-to-walk ratio over his last six starts. But just as he won Pitcher of the Month for April and then swooned over mid-summer, he followed up his recent hot streak with a bad outing tonight.

The wheels came off early when Vinnie Pasquantino hit a two-run blast in the first inning, but Logan was bad all night, allowing traffic in four of his five innings. Going almost exclusively with his fastball and slider, neither pitch was especially good: it took him to his 30th pitch to collect his first whiff. In contrast,

Logan’s pitches were struck hard seven times tonight. 

Indeed, the Mariners were in danger of falling to 2-7 on their road trip before Raleigh entered the game and turned it all around -- evening the series at one game apiece and setting up Sunday's matinee rubber game. 

“It was very important,” said Raleigh, who has hit two homers in the series. “Obviously, we haven’t been doing our best lately. For us to get a win tonight and gut it out was big. That’s what good teams do and that’s what playoff teams do. That’s where we want to be.”

Seattle (83-68) picked up a game on Baltimore, which lost 11-10 to the Astros, to go up four in the race for the third American League Wild Card spot. The Mariners managed to take a firm step in the right direction despite leaving 14 men on base against the Royals.

.@TheDaveSimsShow and @heygoldy on the call 

 

Raleigh's Game-Tying HR (25) It’s Raleigh Time 

Kansas City put some good early swings on Logan Gilbert by attacking his fastball early in counts. That meant Seattle had to make an uphill climb and eventually got where it wanted to go.

Raleigh’s two-run homer was a mammoth 444-foot blast to deep right field with a 112 mph exit velo, according to Statcast, and his winning double was an opposite-field drive to left.

“That’s a long way to hit the ball to the opposite field,” Servais said of Raleigh’s ninth-inning at-bat. “That’s a home run in [most] every other ballpark. Heck of a job by Cal. His timing is really good. He’s seeing the ball and he’s not in a rush.”

Gilbert went five innings and the Royals scored on him in four of those frames. But the Mariners’ bullpen delivered four scoreless innings and that gave Raleigh a chance to be the offensive catalyst for a win after sitting out the first half of the game.

Raleigh’s 25th homer tied Mike Zunino for the most by a Seattle catcher in a season. Zunino hit his 25 in 2017.

But it was the opposite-field double in the ninth by Raleigh that finally enabled Seattle to jump in front and set the stage for Andrés Muñoz to pick up the save.

Andrés Muñoz Gets Final Out

 

“Sometimes people get carried away with trying to do too much,” Raleigh said of his ninth-inning heroics. “Just square it up and the rest will take care of itself.”

KANSAS CITY -- The fear of Julio Rodríguez heading to the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain is now a reality for the Mariners.

Rodríguez underwent testing on Friday afternoon prior to the start of a three-game series against the Royals at Kauffman Stadium, and he landed on the IL at the most crucial time of the season.

“He’s still a little bit sore today,” manager Scott Servais said prior to his team's 5-1 loss. “It’s on his right side, top of his buttocks area. We’ll see how the findings turn out and go from there.”

This is a major blow for the Mariners, whose lead for the third AL Wild Card spot dipped to three over the Orioles with their 6-0 win over the Astros. Seattle, which also sits 1 1/2 games back of Wild Card co-leaders Toronto (84-67) and Tampa Bay (84-67), has lost six of its past eight games.

“You never know when a player goes on the IL if he’ll be ready to go off there after the 10 days, but all of our trainers and medical professionals think that he’ll be OK at that point,” Servais said after Friday's game. “Not only has he had a fantastic year, but he does so much for our team with his energy and really

leading the charge for our team.”

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

 

Erik Swanson Joins MLB Network’s High Heat

Rodríguez’s pain seemed to begin last weekend in a road series against the Angels and then he left Thursday’s game vs. the A’s in the second inning, although the American League Rookie of the Year frontrunner initially wasn’t sure what caused the injury.

“I would say, it’s September,” Rodríguez said at that time. “That’s my best answer to it.”

In a corresponding move, outfielder Taylor Trammell was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma. He has hit four home runs to go with 10 RBIs and 15 runs scored in 41 games this season in the Majors.

Rodríguez is batting .280 and slugging .502, with 24 doubles and 27 homers this season across 129 games. On Sept. 14, he became just the third rookie in AL/NL history to put up a 25-homer, 25-stolen base season -- and he did it in three fewer career games (125) than Mike Trout (128).

Among AL rookies, Rodríguez currently ranks first in home runs (27), second in RBIs (73), first in total bases (251), second in stolen bases (25) and first in bWAR (5.7).

His impact on this Mariners team can't be overstated as Seattle is 9-12 without Rodríguez in the lineup this season and 73-56 with him in it. The 21-year-old leads the team in average, slashing .280/.342/.502 (.844 OPS).

Abraham Toro

This comes at the same time that their leader in home runs and RBIs, Eugenio Suárez, is also on the 10-day IL (right index finger fracture). Suárez appears to be ready to come back once the road trip concludes this weekend.

“Geno looked great today,” Servais said. “I was surprised with how hard he was swinging and letting it go. He should take BP tomorrow.”

It was Cal Raleigh who provided the only source of offense against the Royals in the series opener -- hitting his 24th long ball of the season, a Statcast-projected 396 feet to right field in the second inning. The Mariners have scored just one run five times in their past seven games.

Cal Raleigh's Solo Homer (24)

“Baseball season is a long year and you’re going to have some ups and downs,” Servais said. “We haven't played well on this road trip, no question. We’ve won a couple games when we’ve come out and scored and when we don’t, it’s been one run. You’re not going to win 1-0 on the road.”

The earliest Rodríguez can return is in the final series of the regular season against Detroit. The timing is unfortunate with a playoff berth in reach, and it feels like the Mariners are trying to will themselves into the postseason and end a drought over two decades in the making.

“Things happen and this is when we find out, as a team, you don’t have to try any harder. But we’ve got to have good at-bats, really come together as a team and get it over the hump,” Servais said. “We’ll come out and play a really good game tomorrow, but tonight, I was disappointed we didn’t do more offensively \

because we had some chances early in the game.”

Mariners Roster Moves:

Taylor Trammell, OF, recalled from Triple-A Tacoma.

Julio Rodríguez, OF, placed on the 10-day Injured List (lower back strain).

Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images

On this day in Ichiro, 2010: Ichiro records his 200th hit, making him the first player to reach 10 consecutive 200-hit seasons. The Mariners lose to the Blue Jays on Jose Bautista’s 50th home run, 1-0. FEELS APPROPRIATE.