Mariners clinch American League West title for first time since 2001
Season after season, they could only watch as someone else took their turn atop a place that seemed to grow farther away with each passing year.
When the 2001 Seattle Mariners ran away with the American League West, clinching their third division title (1995, 1997) on Sept. 19, and rolling to an MLB-record 116 wins, turning then-Safeco Field into the coolest place to be from April until October, damn if it didn’t feel like they would have winning teams forever.
But success in this game can be fleeting. Players age. Opponents improve. Business decisions become more important than baseball moves. Bad baseball moves leave lasting effects. Mediocrity seeps its way into a culture and becomes a resident.
But 24 seasons without winning a division title?
During that time, the Angels started saying they were from Los Angeles instead of Anaheim while squandering a future Hall of Famer and also a generational two-way talent. The Astros joined the division, tanked and then dominated while turning trash cans into a metaphor for cheating. The Rangers had two different stadiums and more success than the neighboring Cowboys. The A’s had a movie made about them being cheap, but successful, tried at least four different stadium solutions and then left Oakland for a Triple-A ballpark and a final destination that will supposedly be in Las Vegas. All four of those teams each taking turns as division champs on multiple occasions.
And the Mariners? Well, they sort of listlessly floated in the ether of being relevant and not. They had teams that were good but not great. They had teams that were unwatchably bad. They wanted to win a division again, but were reluctant to commit to what it takes to do so.
Eventually they embarked on their first true rebuild following a winning 2018 season. They didn’t want to just compete for wild cards. They wanted division titles.
A drought-breaking postseason appearance in 2022 with a series win in the wild card round was the start. Bettering that outcome proved more difficult than expected with disappointment the last two seasons.
But with their 9-2 pasting of the Rockies on Wednesday night, a vision that was born in the minds of the front office executives Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander, a goal that was demanded to be the standard by players before them and an accomplishment more than two decades in the making was finally realized by the 2025 Seattle Mariners.
You can call them: American League West champions.
Standing on the top step of the dugout, Dan Wilson, the quiet stalwart catcher of the 2001 team and the stoic, controlled manager of the 2025 team, beamed as his players after they made the last out.
It just feels really good,” Wilson said, admitting he had to fight back tears in the ninth. “You work hard all season long, and you get to this point, it’s just pure joy. You’ve been able to accomplish something that you wanted to accomplish while understanding that there’s still more ahead of us.”
In the dugout, Wilson hugged Edgar Martinez. He asked his teammate from that 2001 team to come back last season and change the hitting philosophy. Quiet and unassuming, Martinez stood out the outside of the Champagne and beer deluge and wore his familiar look of content. He nodded to Wilson, who was being showered by Champagne.
“He’s been incredible,” Martinez said. “As a manager, you have to be levelheaded all the time. He’s been impressive in how he has talked to the guys. The way he leads his team, it’s been awesome to watch.”
Roughly 24 hours after celebrating a come-from-behind win over a bad team to earn a spot in the postseason, the Mariners’ two young superstars — Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez — set an early tone of superiority, smashing back-to-back homers in the first inning and turning T-Mobile Park and the crowd of 42,883 into bedlam.
“This is so much better,” Rodriguez said. “To be the best team in the division, it definitely means a lot to us. It’s a special group. There is some building in this city right now. Everybody knows we have the team.”
The comfortable early-fall evening turned into a party for everyone with starter Luis Castillo looking dominant and run support piling up via base hits and homers. Heck, even rookie catcher Harry Ford got to catch the final inning.
It was only fitting that Raleigh, who has become the conscience of the organization and something more than the face of the franchise, added to his unprecedented season on the team’s night of triumph. With fans standing in anticipation, Raleigh followed up his first-inning homer with another solo blast in the eighth inning — giving him 60 homers this season.
“I didn’t know if I was going to hit 60 in my life,” Raleigh said as voice cracked with emotion. “And I did it like this tonight. What a way to do it.”
He is one of seven players in Major League history to hit 60 homers in a season.
“I marvel at what he’s doing,” Dipoto said. “I hope there’s something awesome ahead for him in terms of recognition. But whether it comes or not, he was the MVP of this league in my opinion.”
The chants of MVP! MVP! MVP! reverberated from the Pacific Northwest resonating across the country to largely obstinate ears in the Bronx.
“As a catcher, you come off the field at the end of the day, you’re mentally and physically exhausted,” Wilson said. “For him to do what he’s done offensively and to do what he does behind the plate, I honestly don’t think we’ve seen this before. I think he’s the MVP, no question.”
As they showered each other with beer and Champagne on Tuesday, the Mariners to a man said it was only a pre-party and that the real celebration would come after they clinched a division. They knew the history. They’ve heard plenty about the 2001 team. They need only to look above the third deck in right field — where Raleigh’s 59th homer landed — to see the banners hanging from the rafters. The AL West champs had three numbers for far too long: 1995, 1997, 2001.
“We were talking upstairs about how fun it’s going to be to see them raise that banner and I hope there’s a couple more titles on it before it goes up there,” Dipoto said. “I’m so happy for this group of guys, for this staff, for the people who helped us build, but who aren’t here now, for our organization in total, for our fan base. … These last five years, we’ve been so close so often, and to get over that hump in this kind of way, everybody deserves this.”
But that isn’t enough for them. The AL West was one goal on their course to the top of the mountain, as Wilson said on Tuesday. Their goal is to win the World Series, a sentiment that would’ve seemed laughable in so many years since 2001.
It seems something more than possible with this team that’s anchored by Raleigh, buoyed by Rodriguez, constructed on starting pitching and improved by the additions of Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez. They are a powerhouse built for modern postseason success.
To quote Raleigh: “We might as well go win the whole (expletive) thing.”