Astros’ sweep of D-backs may oddly help Mariners
Jul 23, 2025, 5:19 PM
It’s not often that the Houston Astros sweeping a series can be seen as potential good news for the Seattle Mariners, especially when the M’s lose a series in the same time frame. But that’s the case after Houston just took three straight games from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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The Diamondbacks are thought of by many as the potential seller at this year’s trade deadline with the most valuable players to offer. And the players at the top of the list Arizona could deal from – third baseman Eugenio Suárez and first baseman Josh Naylor – are two who perhaps fit Seattle’s deadline needs as much any others thought to be available across the league.
Whether or not the Diamondbacks will actually end up selling has been a big question for over a month now due to their status as a team on the playoff bubble. That bubble hasn’t burst at this point, but it just entered an even more delicate state only eight days before the deadline.
The series sweep dropped Arizona to 50-53 and 5 1/2 games out of the final wild card spot in the National League. The Diamondbacks have three more teams out a playoff spot still in front of them, and they’ve nearly fallen back into a tie with the Miami Marlins, who are just one game further behind in the standings.
According to FanGraphs, Arizona’s chances of reaching the playoffs are down to 10.9%. Those odds are better than just five other NL teams, four of which are more than 10 games below .500.
Of course, this was a bit of a win-lose situation for the Mariners. They fell two games further back due dropping two of three against the Milwaukee Brewers and trail the Astros by six games in the division. But a wild card berth is still very much in play if they aren’t able to walk down Houston by season’s end.
If the Astros’ sweep ends up being what needed to happen to make Arizona a seller at the deadline, it could very well be the Mariners who come out on the better end in the long run.
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