The View From First Place

The 2018 Seattle Mariners are for real.

I was in Safeco Field on Saturday, October 6, 2001 when the Mariners won their 116th game by beating the Texas Rangers 1 to 0. Ichiro was a rookie that year. After setting the record for most wins in a season, we made the playoffs, beating the Indians but dropping the ACLS to the fucking Yankees. That was the last time the Mariners made it to the postseason.
This year’s Mariners, who as of this morning are 19 games above five hundred with the third-best record in baseball and in sole possession of first place in the AL West. This fall will definitely be different for long-suffering Mariners fans.

Given that much of last year’s roster is still with the team, the remarkable improvement is testament to what the addition of few players can mean at the major-league level. The 2017 Mariners’ success is no mystery—the team is playing at a crazy high level in all three of the keys to the game: pitching, offense, and defense.

Felix Hernandez is now the Mariners’ worst starter, which is sad on many levels but which speaks volumes about how James Paxton, Marco Gonzales, Mike Leake, Wade LeBlanc, Roenis Elias, are stepping up this year. Paxton entered the No-Hitter Club this year and is making a serious case for a Cy Young award. Gonzales, and his ERA is SECOND to that of Wade LeBlanc, who only has two wins because he is the sole victim of what used to be the curse of all Mariners pitchers—lack of run support. Marco Gonzales, who showed great promise last year, has been insanely great and is demonstrating that he has the stuff and the determination to be a force as a big-league starter. He is tied for the most wins on the staff with Mike Leake, the quiet, slim guy who just keeps winning games. And Hisashi Iwakuma, an excellent, crafty veteran, is still rehabbing from an injury and could reappear later in the year as a real bonus.

The Mariners relievers are the best in baseball and probably represent the main reason for the team’s turnaround in 2017. There is literally no downside with this group. Diaz is the 9th-inning-closer-from-hell. Pazos’ aggressiveness has made him a star—he’s been in 27 games and has a 1.54 ERA. Alex Colome has faltered in his last two outings, but kudos to the front office for getting him another late-inning flamethrower on the squad. Ryan Cook is a very cool story—the former All-Star who comes back after nearly two years out of the game after surgery to pitch really well.

The long-moribund Mariners bats have come alive all the way up and down the lineup this year—the team is currently third in AL team batting average. Jean Segura is hands down the most underrated player in baseball. It’s hard to believe that this guy was let go by the Angels, Brewers, and Diamondbacks. The arrival of Dee Gordon, who has made all of us remember what it can mean for a team to have a lead-off hitter who can truly wreak havoc on the basepaths, meant moving Segura to second in the batting order, which has helped him become a literal hitting machine. Segura is current second in batting in the AL with a .342 average and has THIRTY (not a typo) multi-hit games already this year. The way he can hit to all fields and in all situations is uncanny. Ben Gamel is starting to warm up, which is cause for salivation—this guy led the league in batting briefly last year. The team has a lot of power at the plate, and it’s beautifully distributed: Cruz and Haniger both have 15 home runs and Seager and Healy each have a dozen.

The pundits continue to lowball the Mariners’ defense this year, but they are full of it. Heredia gets incredible jumps on fly balls and is proving that he can totally handle center, and Mitch Haniger has been phenomenal in right field. He chased down a sure double deep in the corner last night and threw out the runner with a perfect strike to second. Ryon Healy had been the biggest defensive surprise—he has saved countless double plays with a sure glove and a monster stretch at first base. And let’s give it up for pitcher Marco Gonzales’ defensive skills—he has picked off FIVE base runners this season, including two at second base.

This team lost All-Star Robinson Cano in May. For EIGHTY games. The professional odds makers gave the Mariners a 17% chance of making the playoffs, and, even if we were able to make them, Cano was banned from that action, too.

That kind of blow—and the rippling impacts from it—would have rocked most teams. The Mariners have responded by going 21-7 since that dark day, and the aftershocks have actually IMPROVED the team. Guillermo Heredia, a player with enormous promise, now gets to play almost every day. The replacement at second is Dee Gordon, who has been an All Star at that position. And new GM Jerry Dipoto, hampered by a paper-thin farm system, leapt into action and added the solid Denard Span and reliever Colome.

The result is that the Mariners are winning the close games for the first time in eons—and doing it at a pace rarely seen. We are 21 and 9 in one-run games and 7 and 2 in two-run contests. That’s why I think you have to point to the bullpen as the #1 driver of our success, among many.

The team chemistry—often hard to fathom from television—seems to really be there. Of course, winning helps that considerably, but the smiles and positive reinforcement in the dugout seem genuine. Scott Servais seems like a smart man who really understands his team.

The last season the Mariners played in mid-October was the cosmically spectacular rookie year of Ichiro Suzuki. One of the sweetest aspects of the 2018 season has been the way the Mariners organization handled Ichiro. One of the greatest players of all time returned to Safeco Field this year to a wave of nostalgic goodwill, but he struggled to make a contribution in the early part of the season. It was obvious to everyone that Suzuki had to make way for Heredia and Gamel, and the Mariners and Ichiro worked out an incredibly civilized arrangement in which Suzuki has become a “team advisor.” No one knows what that means and no one cares—seemingly not even Ichiro, who, for an athlete with one of the most pathological work ethics ever seen in sports, seems actually content with pitching batting practice, cracking jokes in the dugout, and shaking everyone’s hand after yet another win.

Sure, we’re headed to Boston and New York in the coming week, and we may not win those series. But make no mistake—this year’s Mariners are for real, and we fans should savor every minute of it.