The Mariners are coming alive just before it’s too late

Sep 15, 2024, 4:45 PM | Updated: 7:57 pm

Julio Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners celebrates a home run against Texas on Sept. 13, 2024. (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

(Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

BY BRENT STECKER

Seattle Sports

Did you think the Seattle Mariners were done for?

It’s OK to admit it. There have been many times in the last month where it sure felt like they were.

Sunday: Kirby, Garver keep Mariners rolling in 7-0 win over Rangers

A nine-game road trip in August where they lost all but one game, sending them crashing back to a .500 record – yeah, that was one of these times.

Four straight losses split between Anaheim and Oakland, two teams that haven’t been in the race all season, to put the M’s under .500 just as the calendar turned to September? That was pretty rough, too (and the multiple walkoffs sure didn’t help).

Or what about Thursday, when the Mariners let a three-run lead slip through their hands in the late innings and fell at home to the Texas Rangers, dropping them to 4 1/2 games back for both the AL West lead and a wild card? Even I thought it was curtains there.

Well, it turns out it wasn’t.

The Mariners have stormed right back into the playoff picture with three straight weekend victories over the Rangers, and it appears they’re conjuring up some kind of witchcraft with their City Connect uniforms, which they have broken out for every game since Julio Rodríguez’s dramatic three-run homer in the eighth inning of a 5-4 comeback win Friday night (Friday the 13th, naturally).

For whatever reason, those uniforms – bad luck symbol on their heads or not – have been good to Seattle this year. With Sunday’s 7-0 victory over Texas, the Mariners improved to 15-1 on the season when wearing black pants. I got my money on the “Tridents Up” slogan and keeping that home run trident pointed the right direction (it’s just like the superstition with horseshoes – pointed up is good luck, pointed down is bad luck) for carrying the powers of neutralization, but I digress.

What’s really important here is that the Mariners are playing good, which hasn’t been the case often in the second half of this season.

Seattle (77-73) has now won eight of its last 11 games, bringing the M’s back within 2 1/2 games of the American League’s third and final wild card that currently belongs to a 79-70 Minnesota Twins team that is 7-13 over the last 20 games. The Mariners are still 4 1/2 behind Houston (81-68) in the AL West, but don’t forget that three big games remain between the bitter division rivals.

MLB standings

The Mariners’ starting pitchers have continued to be what they’ve been all season, which is the best rotation, one through five, in all of baseball. The bullpen has taken its lumps, but the emergence of rookie Troy Taylor as a trustworthy option in the late innings for manager Dan Wilson (still weird to say that) has helped bridge the gap to shutdown closer Andrés Muñoz. And the offense, dare I say it, has been taking care of business.

Would you believe the Mariners entered Sunday with a 100 OPS+, which means for the season as a whole they have been a league-average offense? You know how bad it’s been for the bats this year, so that speaks volumes for what the lineup has done since the switch from previous manager Scott Servais to Wilson and hitting coach Edgar Martinez (though it’s hard to say if that’s really the impact of a new philosophy in such a small sample of games).

The @Mariners are 8-3 over their last 11 games since Sept. 4. During that span, Seattle's offense ranks 1st in @MLB in runs (67), 1st in batting average (.292), 1st in hits (112), 1st in extra-base hits (43), 1st in total bases (185) & 1st in OPS (.858).

— Mariners PR (@MarinersPR) September 15, 2024

Any discussion of the offense turning around needs to begin with the aforementioned Rodríguez. So he goes, so go the Mariners, as has been the popular saying in his three years with Seattle. And for most of this season, Rodríguez wasn’t going.

Well, he is now.

JULIO. FOR. THE. LEAD. pic.twitter.com/qRfJw00P8z

— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 14, 2024

In his last nine contests, Rodríguez has four multi-hit games, including a 4-for-5 showing on Friday that featured the first of two homers that reached the upper deck in left field at T-Mobile Park in consecutive days. There’s still been some inconsistency, as he went hitless on Sunday, but in the 16 games before, Rodríguez slashed .353/.416/.618 for a 1.033 OPS with five homers and three doubles. If there’s anybody that the Hall of Famer playing the role of hitting coach is helping right now, it’s gotta be Rodríguez.

With Rodríguez figuring things out, Seattle suddenly has a formidable outfield trio that also includes the table-setting Victor Robles and the X-factor that is Randy Arozarena, who reached the 20-20 mark for the fourth straight season with a homer on Sunday. And don’t forget to give props to Luke Raley, another 20-homer player this season, or Cal Raleigh, the 30-homer catcher who’s been Seattle’s most steady offensive presence in 2024.

The Mariners are finally playing to their potential. They’re most certainly not out of it. But at the same time, there is legitimate concern that it could still be too little, too late.

Seattle fans have seen the M’s come so close to making the playoffs only to fall a win or two short in the end several times in the past decade. And it sure doesn’t put fans at ease when you consider that Seattle’s 2 1/2-game deficit for the wild card is actually three games because Minnesota holds a tiebreaker over them, serving as a reminder of just how big of a hole the Mariners put themselves in that they’re trying to dig out of.

Can they do it? All they can do is put on their black pants and keep on winning.

What’s next

The Seattle Mariners get the day off Monday before a big three-game series against the AL East-leading New York Yankees (87-63) and a pivotal six-game road trip that includes series against the Rangers (71-79) and the AL West-leading Houston Astros (81-68).

The Mariners this week on Seattle Sports:

• Monday – Mariners Extra Innings (7-9 p.m.)
• Tuesday – Mariners vs. Yankees (pregame 5:30 p.m., first pitch 6:40)
• Wednesday – Mariners vs. Yankees (pregame 5:30 p.m., first pitch 6:40)
• Thursday – Mariners vs. Yankees (pregame noon, first pitch 1:10 p.m.)
• Friday – Mariners at Rangers (pregame 4 p.m., first pitch 5:05)
• Saturday – Mariners at Rangers (pregame 3 p.m., first pitch 4:05)