The Mariners just brought fun back to fall baseball in Seattle

The question is rhetorical now. Mariners fans, are you already having fun?

Of course you are. It’s late September, the Mariners have just completed a gigantic four-game sweep of a division rival and hopeful playoff colleague by beating three homers for a 6-5 comeback win, and oh, at 84 -69 They are within two games at wildcard spot in the American League with nine games to be played.

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Maybe it’s the fall air or the well-known “refuse to lose” mentality or all those local players that come together on the track, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that all the fun the Mariners are having is like something to people feels like here about 26 years ago across the street from where the T-Mobile Park is now.

Fall baseball in Seattle is fun again.

There’s no telling if these Mariners will put on a run as memorable as what these Mariners did, but you can’t deny that they were more than worth the price of entry this year. In their third season since tearing it all down and rebuilding it, the M’s have established themselves as a team that the rest of the American League must watch. Say what you want about promises made and moving goal posts, but that’s a remarkable twist.

The Mariners play defense. They fight for the record, especially with two outs. And although they may not always have enough offensive, their pitching made up for it – especially on the track.

Seattle took to the streets on September 17 after losing four of five to the humble Arizona Diamondbacks and the hopeful Boston Red Sox in the AL playoffs. After hitting a playoff spot within a game, that skid nearly got them out at 78-68.

I think the road trip was what they needed because they’ve had six wins in seven games since then. Take out an 8-1 loss to Kansas City on September 18 and a 6-5 win over Oakland on Wednesday (I’ll let you look up the starting pitcher that these two games have in common) and the Mariners stopped letting them go than two runs in any of the six remaining games.

The bullpen has been looking after business all season and it continues, even if relief ace Paul Sewald has been struggling to keep the ball in the ballpark lately. And now they are joined by a solid initial rotation that is only left for the struggling Yusei Kikuchi.

Chris Flexen got people to talk about voting the Cy Young Award down after seven strong innings on Wednesday. Marco Gonzales has eight quality starts in 10 games since the beginning of August and is about to drop his ERA below 4 after the tough first three months of the season. Great rookie Logan Gilbert has an ERA of 2.01 in four starts this month and is recovering from a difficult August track. And Tyler Anderson was the glue, as his arrival just before the MLB trading deadline coincided with the rotation that found the consistency Seattle had been looking for all season.

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When you have pitching to hold opponents down like that and an offense doing just enough to take advantage of it, that opens the door to a ton of fun games. Especially if it happens during a playoff race.

This is just the beginning of something in Seattle. In the end, it won’t be a surprise if the Mariners don’t have the horses to finish this race, but that’s not bad.

The wave of young players like Jarred Kelenic, Cal Raleigh and Gilbert who are already on the team are just beginning to show their promise, and the experience they have gained in these momentous September games cannot be quantified. There are many other interested parties, Julio Rodríguez is the most exciting name among them. Kyle Lewis and Evan White will return to the core of Ty France, Mitch Haniger and JP Crawford next year after recovering from injuries incapacitated them earlier this year. Even the bullpen will get a boost as veteran seamstress Ken Giles and young fireball player Andrés Muñoz have returned from surgery on Tommy John. And we didn’t even talk about the supplements they say they’ll be making this off-season.

The best is yet to come, and yet this team has the chance to play its way into the postseason in the last home stand of the year. Wouldn’t that be something?

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