Mariners win 2025 AL West division title

SEATTLE — When they talk about this night for years to come, the dialogue will center on the baseball that was demolished into territory that few have ever reached, along with the banner that will soon descend from the rafters just above where it landed.

T-Mobile Park has been the site of 2,092 regular-season home games for the Mariners since it first opened its gates on July 15, 1999, yet the ticketed 42,883 Wednesday night will always be a special part of a starved fanbase that will forever remember being here.

To witness the title that their favorite team finally claimed after 24 long years, and the spectacle with which it was delivered.

The Mariners officially clinched the American League West crown with a 9-2 win over the Rockies — their first since their 116-win campaign in 2001 — and they were sparked via the most majestic homer of Cal Raleigh’s historic season, a third-deck shot in the first inning for his 59th, then a curtain call in the eighth, another solo shot for his 60th.

“It just seems so fitting,†Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “This has been his year.â€

Raleigh demolished a 438-foot solo shot in the first inning that reached the third deck beyond right field — a portion of the ballpark that only seven other hitters had reached previously — and just below the four banners recognizing the Mariners†previous postseason appearances: three for their AL West titles (2001, 1997, 1995) and another for their Wild Card berths (2022, 2000).

A new banner will hang by Opening Day in 2026, and the recognition for what it will read is still to be determined. Because this yearâ€s team believes that the division title is merely the first crown it will claim, with aspirations to play in the first World Series that this region has ever seen — and the conviction that they can win the whole thing.

“Because we have such a well-balanced team,†said Julio Rodríguez, who went back-to-back with Raleigh in the first inning with his 32nd homer, which tied a career high. “We can do it all, and I think that that’s the identity of this team.â€

If they do win it all, Wednesday nightâ€s memories will be among many in the coming weeks that everyone in the building will tell their friends they were there to witness. A sizable 6,832 tickets were sold on Wednesday alone — accounting for more than 15% of the total crowd — which illustrated how hungry Seattleâ€s fans are to, borrowing from Ichiro Suzuki, seize the moment.

“I love this organization, city and teammates,†Raleigh said. “It’s just been great. To do it in this fashion has been crazy and exciting and fun, and everything that I hoped and dreamed it would be.â€

The Mariners have made T-Mobile Park an ultimate home-field haven, a venue where theyâ€ve now won 10 in a row and 20 of their past 22. By winning the division, theyâ€ve ensured that they will begin the postseason right here, too.

But they can take it a step further as soon as Thursday by clinching the ALâ€s No. 2 seed and the coveted bye into the Division Series that would come with it. They would do so with their next win, or Clevelandâ€s next loss.

Among MLBâ€s active division title droughts, the Mariners snapped the fourth-longest. Only the Pirates (1992), Marlins (1993) and Rockies (1993) have gone longer, as the latter two have never won their division. Even when the Mariners ended the longest active playoff drought in North American professional sports in 2022, it wasnâ€t like this.

And the anticipation only grew in the two years since, when Seattle finished as the first team on the outside looking in.

“I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty awesome,†Raleigh said. “This is what you work for. These are things you think about on a random Thursday in the offseason, sitting at your house knowing you missed it by a game. So it’s, it’s crazy. It’s a lot of fun. I’m super excited. I’m just very, very grateful and very proud of the guys.â€

The Mariners seized the division through their resounding September, a month that began with four straight losses on another brutal East Coast road trip. Yet ever since Rodríguez stopped that spin with a seventh-inning homer towards an eventual win in Atlanta on Sept. 6, theyâ€ve been practically unbeatable, with just one loss in their 16 games since.

The most defining moments in this stretch were easily last weekend in Houston, when the Mariners ambushed the Astros over a three-game sweep and never trailed — conquering a ballpark that was once their house of horrors while supplanting their longtime division rivals with a metaphorical statement that could signal a shift in the divisionâ€s tides long-term.

Throughout Houstonâ€s dominance over the past decade — the Astros had won the AL West in each 162-game season since 2017 — industry commentary centered on a believe-it-when-we-see-it narrative to when they would finally be unseated. Yet the Mariners have done so, finally and emphatically.

“We knew that was what had to happen,†Raleigh said. “It’s no secret, the Astros owned this division for a long time, and to go out there and do it at their place, it meant a lot. It’s not just a random three games somewhere. It meant a little more there.

“These last two years, missing by a game here or there, and looking back, one game here, one game there, and now knowing that we fulfilled that was is nice. And now knowing we’ve got more to do.â€

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