SEATTLE -- It’s all directly in front of the Mariners, to the point where it no longer appears whether the question is if they will reach the postseason, but when?
After a dominant weekend sweep in Houston, the Mariners awoke on Monday’s off-day with an even clearer picture of their October fate -- all of which is in their own hands.
Here are their playoff-clinching scenarios in play over their upcoming series vs. the Rockies:
• Tuesday: Can clinch a postseason berth with a win and a Yankees win over the White Sox
• Wednesday: Can clinch the American League West with any combination of wins and Astros losses equaling three
•Thursday: Can clinch the AL’s No. 2 seed -- and a bye into the AL Division Series, where they’d have home-field advantage -- with a sweep of Colorado and at least one loss by the Tigers in their upcoming series vs. the Guardians.
For all of these to be in play, Seattle (87-69), which has won 14 of its past 15 games, would have to keep winning. Yet in a perfect world, the club could have just about everything locked up before the defending World Series champion Dodgers arrive on Friday for the final regular-season series.
“It feels great to be in the spot that we're in,” J.P. Crawford said after crushing a grand slam in Sunday’s win. “But we can't look too much into the future. We’ve just got to worry about our business on Tuesday.”
The AL’s No. 1 seed, currently occupied by Toronto (90-66), is likely out of the Mariners’ reach, as the Blue Jays hold a three-game lead (plus tiebreaker) with just six games to play. The Blue Jays are also looking to stave off the Yankees (88-68), who are just two games behind them for first place in the AL East and also hold the tiebreaker over Seattle. That said, the Blue Jays are hosting the Red Sox for a three-gamer beginning Tuesday, who are battling for the second AL Wild Card spot, so those games will have meaning.
“We're not stopping now,” Logan Gilbert said, also after Sunday’s win. “Tuesday is a huge game, and I think we're already focused on that, but it's nice to be able to take care of business here and celebrate that a little bit.”
Another benefit of locking everything up by Thursday would be the decreased urgency on Bryan Woo, whose rotation spot is due up that day.
Seattle didn’t have an update on the 2025 All-Star before departing Houston, one day after he underwent an MRI that revealed minor inflammation in his pectoral muscle. The club wanted to see how he responded to treatment and reassess on Monday’s off-day. Woo would easily be the Mariners’ Game 1 choice for any postseason series, but also ensuring that he’s fully healthy for a deep October run is perhaps of the utmost importance in the coming days.
“That's really kind of the pattern that we're in right now,” manager Dan Wilson said. “I mean, again, it's fluid.”
Woo’s status has been the only damper that the Mariners have weathered over the past two-plus weeks, yet Wilson called the MRI results “in a lot of ways, good news” after revealing only “minor inflammation.”
Everything else with the club’s play on the field has sent Seattle into a stratosphere that it hasn’t been accustomed to since it last won the division in 2001 -- because the Mariners control their entire fate.
In each of the past two years upon entering the regular season’s final week, they needed help that they ultimately did not get. And in 2022 when they did reach October, it was as the second AL Wild Card, which forced them to go on the road in each of their first two playoff series.
But now, after a resounding turnaround following a pair of brutal East Coast road trips in August, they have the chance to -- at Ichiro Suzuki’s urging -- “seize the moment,” with the platform of doing so in front of their home fans this week, and again once the playoffs begin if things continue to hold.
“We've still got ways to go,” Cal Raleigh said. “We've still got some work to do at home, and we've just got to keep bringing that same kind of energy.”