Mariners officially eliminated from playoff contention
A win by Texas on Thursday afternoon ended Seattle's slim postseason hopes.
Seattle Mariners manager Dan Wilson and catcher Cal Raleigh during the third inning on Sept. 22, 2026, in Seattle. (Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
(Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
After being unable to capitalize on a soft September schedule, the Seattle Mariners have officially been eliminated from playoff contention.
Mariners put rookie on injured list, recall infielder Leo Rivas
The M’s saw their miniscule playoff hopes dashed Thursday afternoon when the Texas Rangers defeated the New York Mets 3-1.
Seattle entered the day needing to win its final four games and have Texas and Houston each lose their final four games to reach the playoffs. That would have resulted in a three-way tie atop the American League West that the Mariners hold the tiebreaker for.
Despite being five games back entering Sept. 3, the M’s appeared to have a viable path to winning a second straight AL West title for the first time in team history as they entered a stretch of 22 games that featured three against the Rangers, two against the Astros and a combined 17 against the Athletics, Angels and Rockies – the three worst teams in baseball this season. But they’ve gone just 8-10 through the first 18 games en route to elimination.
After winning their first AL West title in 24 years and reaching Game 7 of the AL Championships Series last season, the M’s entered this year as the heavy favorite to win the division and one of the favorites to represent the AL in the World Series. They started the year with a 59.9% chance to win the AL West, an 80.9% chance to make the playoffs and a 9.5% chance to win the World Series, per FanGraphs. The Los Angeles Dodgers were the only team with higher odds in any of three categories.
But after a year that ominously started with the unveiling of an Ichiro Suzuki statue that had a broken bat, the Mariners will spend their October watching from home for the third time in the past four seasons. The club was seeking its first run of consecutive postseason appearances since 2000-01.
With a 73-85 record, Seattle is set to finish the season with a below .500 record for the first time in a full season since 2019, ending a franchise-best run of five straight winning seasons.
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Comments
4 Comments
Short-sided front office.
They recycled the same bullpen hoping for health for all. (Brash, Speier, Vargas)
Have not developed one bullpen arm in 11 years, always a DFA'd player or traded for because Jerry and Justin cannot evaluate talent.
They started the season with 4 RF's
They stuck playing Rivas at 3rd base because they traded their only 3rd base prospect in Williamson (once again getting fleeced by the Rays) while he batted a little over .100 for the first 2 months.
They kept playing injured players hoping for better results (Raleigh, Raley, Donovan, Crawford, Emerson)
They traded for the same player they just DFA'd (Ward for Refsnyder), exiling Robles to the bench for the rest of the year even though he is hitting .260 and creates havoc on the bases.
The piggy back system that failed miserably.
Sending Pereda to AAA when he was clearly outplaying Garver, who made it another month with no productivity.
Control zone hitting philosophy has continued to produce bottom 3rd offense in the entire league repeatedly (look at hits, avg, 2B, K's, etc)
Every pitcher is a fastball/slider combo creating redundancy.
How much more do you need when Dipoto and Hollander has constructed and developed nothing in 11 years beyond starting pitching that has not gotten better but has plateaued.
A new regime is desperately needed
it was an epic collapse and its Dans fault...he let this mess fester instead of dealing with months ago...Undisciplined, uninspired mess
Bye Dan...this mess was on you