Drayer: It’s fitting who could send Mariners to first World Series

In the fall of 2018, members of the Seattle Mariners’ offseason High Performance Camp were working out in the weight room at the spring training complex in Peoria, Ariz.

The camp focuses on developing the young players mostly without touching a baseball, instead filling days with workouts, class work, mental skills and community service. Among the group of top prospects who were selected to participate were Logan Gilbert, who was the organization’s No. 1 draft pick earlier in the summer, and Cal Raleigh, who the Mariners took with their third pick.

At some point during the workout, Raleigh picked up a glove that had been laying around in the gym, dropped to a squat and shouted at Gilbert across the room to fire one in. Gilbert, who had a baseball in hand, complied, lobbing the ball across the room. It was the first throw he had ever made to Raleigh.

How fitting it is that Sunday in Toronto, it will be Gilbert on the hill and Raleigh behind the plate as the starting battery in the only game in the franchise’s 48-year history that’s outcome could send the franchise to their first World Series?

Logan Gilbert to start Game 6 of ALCS for Seattle Mariners

It is something they have thought about since their earliest days in the organization when they were paired up as roommates in that camp.

“I think that was kind of the goal for us and kind of the organization in 2018 when we got drafted,” Gilbert said earlier this year.

It was a dream they shared as they made their way together quickly through the minors with stops in Modesto and Arkansas in 2019, Summer Camp in Tacoma when the 2020 season was wiped out by Covid, then both making their major league debuts in 2021 – Gilbert in early May, Raleigh in early July.

In 2022, both were instrumental in ending the Mariners’ playoff drought, with Gilbert pitching eight innings of one-run ball and Raleigh hitting the home run that would give them the 2-1 win over the A’s on Sept. 30 that would send them to the postseason.

Sunday in Toronto, the pair will look to add to their Mariners immortality, and they will not be alone. Win or lose, this group has earned the right to stand beside the 1995 and 2001 Mariners teams. This is a group that should be and likely will be talked about years after they have left the game.

The season Cal Raleigh had, stunning the baseball world by hitting 60 home runs while seemingly never taking a day off.

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The starting staff will be remembered for being better than they were, but that’s OK – they’ve earned that for what they have done before and what they did down the stretch.

The leverage members of the bullpen – Andrés Muñoz, Gabe Speier, Matt Brash and Eduard Bazardo – will be remembered for going above and beyond in the postseason, taking the ball everytime they were asked.

Geno Suárez’s game-saving Game 5 grand slam will be remembered, as will his emotional reaction after.

Josh Naylor, even if he turns out to be just a short timer, was an instant favorite and his name will come up too. “Remember that first baseman who stole 30 bases?”

There of course is Julio Rodríguez, who perhaps will be remembered for putting team before self in passing on the All-Star Game to ready himself for the second half and more.

Jorge Polanco could fall into Mark McLemore territory, not in is positional flexibility but as the guy they couldn’t have done it without.

J.P. Crawford, the anchor at shortstop who by his own words was saved by the Mariners when they traded for him in 2018 to be one of the first bricks in the Mariners’ foundation in the “step back” – he’s earned a spot in the memories as well.

Winning 16 of 17 (before finally hitting the brakes for the final three games of the season) rather than falling off the cliff after a miserable August will be talked about, as will the electric crowds that filled T-Mobile Park as they approached the series of clinches. Postseason, clinched. Division, clinched – finally felling the Astros. First round, clinched. The echoes of those crowds will be heard throughout the winter.

With what they have done already, this group has earned a prominent spot in Mariners memories. It’s a group you can feel good about knowing it is their names, feats and stories that will be referenced in seasons to come. If over the next two days they are able add a first World Series to those memories, all the better.

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