Commentary: Why no team will want to face the Mariners in the playoffs

SEATTLE – Barring a massive and sustained collapse that might cause a mass mutiny (or universal depression or both) from its fan base, the long local nightmare will soon be over. The Seattle Mariners are – stop reading now if you believe in jinxes – really, truly, probably headed for the playoffs after a 21-year absence.

Here’s the best part: They are set up perfectly to do some major damage when they get there.

Disregard the aberration of Wednesday’s 9-6 sloppy loss to the White Sox, in which the Mariners belied the pregame declaration of manager Scott Servais: “I’ve often said to you, we win a lot of games. We also don’t lose a lot of games.”

Well, they lost this one by giving up six unearned runs via three errors. But it’s an outlier; the Mariners have been among the best defensive teams in baseball all year long and fundamentally strong. Servais was right when he said this after the game: “I’m not going to harp on it. The sky’s not falling. We had a bad day.”

Mostly the Mariners have stacked good day after good day since mid-June. Every year, a team is anointed as the one no one wants to face in the postseason. The Mariners deserve that label in 2022. Oh, you could certainly say the same thing about the Dodgers, Astros and Braves, but they’re hardly sneaking up on anyone; those three teams represent three of the past five World Series winners (and four of the last five World Series losers).

The Mariners would be new blood. They are a team that has been absent from the national stage so long that it would be easy for the casual fan (and even some avid ones) to sleep on them.

That would be unwise. The Mariners would be entering the postseason as a wild card, but they possess many of the elements that lead to long runs. Let me quickly add that they could also be ousted in the first round; the postseason is a crapshoot, as Billy Beane stated more eloquently (and profanely) after one of multiple early ousters of his A’s. The Mariners are far from an offensive powerhouse, and they still have a penchant for squandering too many scoring opportunities. That’s why they are double-digit games behind the Astros in their division.

But here’s why I like their chances of making noise:

• Starting pitching. In a short series, especially if Servais has the luxury of setting up his rotation in the fashion he chooses, the Mariners can throw a potentially dominant starter in each game. Think Luis Castillo, Robbie Ray and likely Logan Gilbert to start with, and George Kirby lurking in the mix.

Before Wednesday, when Castillo started the game with an American League-record tying seven consecutive strikeouts and faltered in the sixth, their starters were 12-2 with a 2.08 earned-run average (111 strikeouts and 16 walks in 117 innings) in their previous 20 games. That plays in the regular season – and especially in the postseason.

“Every day our team comes into the ballpark and says, ‘Who’s pitching for us?’ And it’s a good feeling,” Servais said. “ ‘OK, who’s pitching? Oh, yeah, we’ll be right there. We’re going to win today.’ And then tomorrow: ‘Oh, yeah. We’re right there. We should win today.’

“There’s no better feeling: Pitching drives the train; it will always drive the train in baseball, as far as I’m concerned. You’ve got to make the plays behind them and do all the other stuff. But we’re in a good spot. Love our rotation. We just got to keep them healthy.”

• Bullpen. What really plays in the postseason, when managers tend to have quick hooks, is relief. Especially dominant, strikeout-inducing short relief. And the Mariners are filled with power arms that will allow Servais to play the matchup game that teams such as Kansas City and Cleveland have exploited so well in recent years. I can flat-out guarantee you that no team is eager to face Andres Munoz, who might be the single most overpowering reliever in the game right now this side of Edwin Diaz. Beyond Munoz, the Mariners have had arguably the best pen in the AL over the past 60-plus games by nearly any measurement.

• Momentum. Wednesday’s clunker notwithstanding, the Mariners have been playing the best baseball in the American League for, oh, 2½ months. Since falling 10 games below .500 on June 21, the definitive “sky is falling” moment of the 2022 season, they have a 48-21 record – a .696 winning percentage. Over a 162-game season, that would translate to 113 wins.

The only team better over that span is the powerhouse Dodgers (53-17). Next after Seattle is the defending champion Braves (46-22), who begin a three-game series at T-Mobile Park on Friday that should go a long way toward measuring the M’s place in the MLB hierarchy.

Granted, the Mariners could undo their momentum by stumbling in the final three weeks of the season. But with a finishing schedule of 20 straight games against sub-.500 teams – the final 10 at home – they should be able to slide into October still riding that wave.• The Julio factor. Yes, their vaunted rookie is just 21, but if anyone on the Mariners can take over a series under the red-hot spotlight, it’s Julio Rodriguez. He already showed that propensity for rising to the moment in the Home Run Derby. Superstars have the ability to carry teams on their backs, and Rodriguez is a superstar in the making.

• The X-factor. I suspect the agonizing playoff drought, as painful as it has been, will turn into the Mariners’ friend if and when they get to October. They will certainly become a sentimental favorite, for one thing; but more important, the atmosphere at T-Mobile after a two-decade absence will be nothing short of maniacal. Just think of what it was like in 1995, and expect that level of fanaticism, or perhaps more. No team should have a bigger home-field advantage.

Here’s my unsolicited advice for fans who might still be obsessing over Wednesday’s eyesore of a loss: Harp instead on the looming possibilities.