Julio Rodríguez declared after Wednesday night's Seattle Mariners game, a 6-2 home win featuring three (three!) Mariners home runs, that it's not over yet. This is good to know, because they sure do look done, and just one week ago, the full Mariners mourning began. Back then, FanGraphs gave the Mariners a 10.9 percent chance of making the playoffs, down from a 91.7 percent peak on June 18th, when they held a 10-game lead in the AL West standings.
The eye test and emotional valence test concur with these evil and cruel numbers. The latter half of the season has been dogged by eye-watering strikeout rates in spite of a concerted effort to cut down on strikeout rates; as we all know, out of all the ways to drive poor offensive production, strikeouts are the worst. And if a strikeout-happy offense isn't enough, the bullpen—missing Gregory Santos and Matt Brash terribly—has been an underrated tragedy despite the innings that the starting rotation is putting in. That brings us to one week ago—when manager Scott Servais learned of his firing from Twitter.
But everyone knows that firing a manager can result in a season-saving rally! When Rodríguez declared that "it's not over," he meant that a 68-66 record still allows a shot at making playoffs, which is objectively true, even if it doesn't say great things about the state of the AL West. The Mariners are only 3.5 games back from the Astros, who lead the division with a respectable number of games above .500 but wouldn't make the cut for a wild card spot anywhere else. (During Wednesday night's game, the Seattle broadcasters made a drive-by mention of the AL Central's former position as an irrelevant division—well well well, who's laughing now.)
It's not really worth interrogating what Rodríguez says after games too much. You would certainly prefer that the Mariners believe they can make the playoffs rather than hitting the remaining 28 games with some "gg go next" mentality, but it's something of a different matter for fans to buy into it. Buying into it means wearing some short-term cheerful blinders, which could be fruitless.
Then again, writing the short term off entirely leaves you with little else to do but consider the medium and long ones. Better to live optimistically in the moment, rather than dwell on how the Jerry Dipoto method—a team-building strategy reliant on penny-pinching free agency signings, an elite pitching rotation, and the hope that every offensive player will reach and maintain their peak potential in perfect health indefinitely—is basically how the 2024 Chicago White Sox came to pass.
There's stuff in this game to like: Victor Robles, as always, and Rodríguez showing some pop—maybe he'll start replicating his rookie-year production—and a trade-acquired Randy Arozarena revenge home run. Luis Castillo continued the great Mariners starting pitching record, and the streaky bullpen, unwilling to play to the current narrative, managed three innings without ceding a run. The stakes are a bit more clear-cut than yesteryear. All you have to do is track the Astros, who unfortunately spent much of their game Wednesday afternoon no-hitting the Phillies before winning 1-0. The Mariners entered the game 3.5 games back, and left it, well, 3.5 games back.
But there have been collapses this late in the season before (see: well, the 2023 Mariners), and I am a strong proponent of undue optimism. It's nice to have something to root for at the end of the season. If the Mariners can get it close to the finish line, that's better than the alternative. If they get it close and then lose again—well, at least they're playing true to type. Someone out there clearly decided that the Mariners are better off doing their little dances as underdogs, and a comeback story is always more satisfying. The good news for the powers that be is that the front office is looking to keep them that way—no! We are not thinking about Jerry Dipoto!
