It’s go time: The Mariners’ last road to a playoff push is now

Normally, a 66-74 record would put the Seattle Mariners well out of contention for the playoffs at this point in the year. But as disappointing as their season has been after five months, this is no normal year in an extremely down American League and AL West.

And this is no normal schedule the Mariners face for the final 3 1/2 weeks of the regular season.

Seattle Mariners closer Andrés Muñoz’s changeup has been untouchable

Yeah, the M’s enter Thursday back 4 1/2 games of the last of the three AL wild cards and five games behind the AL West-leading Houston Astros (71-69), but their destiny is still in their hands. Because no team in baseball has an easier slate remaining (according to Tankathon) than Seattle does, and that all starts Thursday with the lowly Athletics (54-86) meeting the M’s for the first of seven games between the two division rivals over the next 11 days.

And the A’s aren’t the only team dwelling near the AL West cellar that the Mariners have seven games with coming up. Seattle will also play three games in Anaheim against the MLB-worst Angels (53-87) after they wrap up their final series with the A’s, then will close out the season with four at home vs. the Angels.

Think that’s it? It’s not.

There will also be a trip to Colorado for three games against the National League’s worst team, the Rockies (54-86).

If the Mariners are able to take care of business with those 17 combined games against the only three teams in baseball with winning percentages below .400, they should put themselves in position to make a move in the AL West. That’s because their five other remaining games we’ve yet to account for are against the two teams they’re chasing in the division: three with the second-place Texas Rangers (69-71), and two with the aforementioned Astros. Oh, and all of those games will be in Seattle.

While the Mariners have this final opportunity in front of them, the Astros and Rangers are nowhere near as easy off.

Houston has the 13th-toughest remaining schedule in MLB, with series still to go against the leaders of the two East divisions (Atlanta and Tampa Bay), and two teams in NL wild card positions (Philadelphia and Arizona).

Texas has it even worse. The Rangers have the ninth-toughest remaining schedule, as they have four with Tampa Bay, plus three-game series with each of Boston, Toronto and Minnesota. The Red Sox are in the second AL wild card spot, while the Blue Jays are even with Texas in the wild card race and the Twins are just two games back of them both.

The Mariners have a little momentum now, too, after taking two of three in a series where their bats warmed up in Boston.

Seattle’s odds to make the playoffs may be just 20.9% per Fangraphs entering Thursday. But if it can start stacking wins amid its advantageous schedule, it will be highly interesting to see how drastically that number changes after each victory.

It ain’t over. And the Mariners have 22 games to prove it.

Doing some math

How many wins will the Mariners need the rest of the way to make the playoffs?

The Cleveland Guardians enter Thursday at 70-69 and in position for the final AL wild card. Fangraphs projects Cleveland to finish 82-80. But because the Guardians own a head-to-head tiebreaker over Seattle from going 4-3 in their season series, the Mariners would need to get to an 83-79 record to beat this projection. So over the final 22 games, you’re looking at the Mariners needing to win 17 of them. Not exactly easy, no matter how dismal the competition.

Believe it or not, even though the Mariners are a little further back in the AL West race, that may be where their best path still lays. The Astros, like Cleveland, are projected to go 82-80. And Seattle has already clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker with a 9-2 record to date vs. Houston (plus can gain serious ground with those two important games to go vs. the Astros). So in this projection, if the M’s win 16 of their last 22 games, they’re playing in October.

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