Mariners catch another team in AL playoff race

Another door is opening for the Seattle Mariners in their quest to get back to the playoffs.

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With a 5-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels and a Boston Red Sox loss to the Yankees on Saturday, the Mariners have now caught the Red Sox in the wild card standings. Seattle, Boston and the Houston Astros are all tied for the second and third wild berths. The M’s also remained tied atop the AL West with Houston, which beat the Atlanta Braves on Saturday.

Additionally, the Mariners kept their two-game lead over the Texas Rangers, who had a 3-2 comeback win over the Mets on Saturday.

A first division championship since 2001 would be the Mariners’ preferred path to the playoffs, but another wild card berth coming into play at least widens the club’s path to the postseason, which looked more like a three-team race with Houston and Texas for the AL West title and final wild card berth at the start of the week.

The Mariners and Red Sox split their season series 3-3, so a potential tiebreaker in the wild card standings would come down to the each team’s intradivision record, which makes the Red Sox losing to the Yankees even more helpful to Seattle. The Mariners currently hold a lead in the tiebreaker criteria with a .625 winning percentage against the AL West at 30-18, while Boston has a .600 winning percentage against the AL East at 27-18.

The Mariners can clinch the second tiebreaker against Boston with any combination of wins against the AL West and Red Sox losses against the AL East that add up five. Find the remaining head-to-head tiebreaker criteria here.

While another Red Sox loss is ultimately helpful to the Mariners’ overall hopes of reaching the playoffs, the potential drawback is that if the Mariners were to reach the playoffs with the second wild card berth, they could end up facing a Yankees squad that outscored them by 17 runs and won five of six games in their season series. And the three-game series would start with two at Yankee Stadium.

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