Let me tell you what it’s like being a Mariners fan. We start the season optimistic. Not thinking World Series, but playoffs could happen.
Then we start slow and we accept it’s not our year (Again). Then the Mariners do just enough in August to give us a playoff scenario in September. Then we reach the last week of the season. We get our hopes up. We BELIEVE!
Then we lose two of the last three games and miss the postseason.
Last year was the exception. The Mariners clinched the Division in mid-September. Wound up earning the Number 2 seed. Coming into the Postseason they looked like legitimate contenders. I got all my friends to agree if the Mariners won it all we’d get trident tattoos (Which would be my first). That’s how excited we got!
The Mariners fell one swing short of reaching the World Series, and it was devastating. It’s actually hard to explain to fans in other cities what it was like in Seattle (Or Tacoma). Everybody was rallying around this one thing. This thing the rest of the country has scoffed at us about my whole life. Hell, there’s a joke in How I Met Your Mother that inviting the Mariners to the World Series is like inviting an ex to a wedding - it’s just weird for everybody. Falling just short the way we did hurt like a breakup. It was a legitimate heartache.
If it wasn’t for my family having a reunion during the World Series, I might not have even watched. Many of my friends didn’t.
Watching the World Series last year felt like watching the love of your life marry someone else. It should have been me.
Coming into this season, the expectation was that we would at least get back to the playoffs. Maybe even make another deep run. Well, the Mariners got off to a slow start, and other than for a few brief moments in the middle of the season, never really picked up. The weird thing is that playoff hope is still as alive for us as it is for anyone else in the American League (Minus the Angels and Athletics).
With a little over a month to go, the Mariners are 3 back for both the AL West, and the last AL Wild Card spot.
With a record of 63-69 that shouldn’t be the case this late into the season, but it is. By contrast, the Pittsburgh Pirates are 64-69 and 7.5 back from the last Wild Card spot in the National League (And 18 back for their division in the NL Central).
For about a month I’ve said the Mariners might make the playoffs. But it doesn’t matter. We’re not getting past any of the top three teams in the AL East (Rays are 78-53, Yankees are 74-56, Red Sox are 72-59).
Then last night happened.
Phillies vs Mariners. The first of a three game series.
Bottom of the first, Julio Rodriguez blasted a three-run homer (His 20th of the season), giving the M’s a 3-1 lead they never let go of.
Julio heating up at the right time is one thing. He always seems to come alive late in the season.
What about last year’s rightful MVP?
Just a couple of batters later he blasted one too. Then again in the 5th. Then again in the 7th!
Cal Raleigh ended the night 3 for 3 with three home runs and four RBIs. The Mariners won the game 9-2, but that’s not the story. The real story is The Dark Knight Rises. Is the Big Dumper back? Has he climbed out of the pit and made the jump that no man of privilege can make?
We’re going to find out fast. And if The Dumper is back, where’s the limit? Can the whole team rally like a bunch of Gotham City Police that have been waiting to pounce on their captors since being trapped underground for months? (I promise, Christopher Nolan didn’t ask me to write this. I just love that movie.)
The point is this. The Mariners have the same roster as last year when we fell short by just one swing in the ALCS. Keeping the Mariners alive this late into the season could be a mistake for the rest of the league. Should have killed us when you had the chance!
If the Big Dumper is back, so are the Mariners.
-Written by Seattle Mike