Who’s in 1st? Mariners pull even with Rangers atop AL West

The Seattle Mariners keep winning. The Texas Rangers keep losing. And now they’ve met atop the standings in the American League West.

Buckle up. The race for the division is on.

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The Mariners hung on to beat the pesky Kansas City Royals 7-5 on Friday night (recap story here), pushing Seattle’s record on the year to 72-56. That’s the same record as the Rangers, who dropped their eighth straight game Friday as the Minnesota Twins hammered them 12-1.

Seattle is the hottest team in baseball, having won nine of its last 10 games, 17 of its last 21, and 22 of its last 26. That’s been enough to erase a 10-game deficit they faced in the division on July 19.

A lot has changed for the Seattle Mariners over the last 37 days 🔱 pic.twitter.com/PauVLRvSPg

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) August 26, 2023

Mariners open homestand with J.P.’s huge HR on first pitch

Hold the celebration for now, though. Not only are there 34 more games for each team to go – including seven against each other in the final 10 games of the season – but Texas holds the tiebreaker advantage by having won five of their six head-to-head matchups thus far. So for now, the Rangers technically still lead the AL West.

JP Crawford in walkoff interview on the #Mariners in 1st place,
"Like Jay Buhner once said, forget the Wild Card, man. We're going for the division but we still have a lot of games to go. We gotta keep the way we are playing now, keep focused and take it one day at a time"

— Shannon Drayer (@shannondrayer) August 26, 2023

That being said, there was even more good news for the M’s on Friday as they gained a little space between themselves and another AL West rival, the defending World Series champion Houston Astros. The Detroit Tigers beat Houston 4-1 on Friday, and with the Astros now at 72-58, they’re one game back of Seattle not just in the division but for the second of the AL’s three wild cards. Houston has now lost six of its last eight, and eight of its last 12.

Current MLB Standings: Division | Wild Card

The Seattle Mariners continue play at 1:10 p.m. Saturday against the Royals. Coverage for the game will be carried on 770 AM and the Seattle Sports app beginning with the pregame show at noon, with Seahawks preseason coverage being carried on 710 AM. For details on how to stream the game, click the link below.

Where to find Mariners-Royals, Seahawks-Packers on the radio Saturday

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