For the first time in 24 years, the Seattle Mariners will end the season on top of the AL West. The Mariners clinched the AL West division title Wednesday night with a 9-1 win over the Colorado Rockies, officially surpassing the Houston Astros after a neck-and-neck race to the end of the season.
They got there in style, with star catcher Cal Raleigh slugging his 59th and 60th homers of the season. He is the seventh player in MLB history to enter the 60-homer club.
The division title is the Mariners’ fourth in franchise history, with the most recent coming way back in 2001. Seattle is advancing to the playoffs for just the fourth time in the past 26 seasons and the sixth time in franchise history (since 1977).
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The AL West has been a battle all season, with the Mariners, Astros and Texas Rangers all in the playoff hunt. Houston held the top spot for most of the summer, but a late surge put the Mariners back on top.
Seattle significantly boosted its chances with a sweep of the Astros last weekend, taking three wins in Houston and securing the tie-breaker. With six games remaining in the season, the Mariners needed three wins to clinch the division, and they rose to the challenge against the Rockies.
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This long-awaited division title comes three years after the Mariners snapped a 21-year playoff drought — the longest postseason drought in major American sports at the time — with a wild-card berth in 2022. That year, Seattle finished with a 90-72 record, 16 games back from the Astros, and beat the Blue Jays in the wild-card round before losing to Houston in the ALDS.
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Seattle is one of only five MLB teams that has never won a World Series, and it’s the only team in the league that has never appeared in a World Series. The ’25 Mariners, riding to the franchise’s best season in 25 years, will hope to change that.
This year has marked one of the most exciting seasons in the team’s history. There have been wild diving double plays, 12th-inning walk-offs and a series against the Atlanta Braves in which Seattle scored a total of 29 runs.
All throughout, Raleigh has been hitting home run after home run, breaking records and making history in the process. And while Raleigh is a front-runner in the AL MVP race, he isn’t the only reason this Seattle team is thriving.
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Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor, who both joined the Mariners via trades with the Arizona Diamondbacks before the deadline, have been game-changers for the team. On the mound, 25-year-old Bryan Woo has established himself as the Mariners’ ace in a rotation full of great pitchers. The collective has given this Seattle team a new energy that is sending them to the postseason.
The Mariners have four games left in the regular season before the playoffs begin. They are in line to secure a bye through the wild-card round and host the ALDS against the winner of one of the AL wild-card series.
It remains to be seen how far Seattle will make it in the postseason. But for a Mariners fan base that has suffered a lot in the past 25 years, it feels like this team has already won.
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