Can the Seattle Mariners ride wacky season all the way to a wild card?
By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writer
We should have known. They tried to warn us that this season would be anything but normal.
On Opening Day, the Seattle Mariners entered the bottom of the eighth inning down 6-1 against the team that would eventually be the first to reach 90 wins in 2021. That team, the Giants, had a 99% chance to win when the inning began.
And then:
The Mariners took the lead! It was time for them to close it out!
But no, that’s what a normal team would do. Instead, Rafael Montero (more on him later) immediately allowed a game-tying HR to Alex Dickerson in the top of the ninth. There were no more runs after that, though, and no runs for Seattle in the bottom of the ninth.
Time for extras. With the go-ahead run on third, Buster Posey flied one down the right-field line and …
What a catch! What a game! To the bottom of the 10th!
In came veteran Giants left-hander José Álvarez, one of the steadiest relievers in baseball over the past half-decade. Surely he wouldn’t walk three straight batters to lose the game. He hadn’t walked three batters in an outing since 2015 (and wouldn’t again in any of his 54 appearances since).
But on Opening Day against the 2021 Seattle Mariners? He most certainly did walk three straight batters to lose the game.
And so, Chaos Ball was born:
With three weeks to go in the MLB season, those same chaotic Mariners sit just three games back of Boston for the second AL wild-card spot. And who is at T-Mobile Park for three games starting Monday? The Red Sox, of course.
That Opening Day game — a one-run, extra-inning victory that required the most improbable of comebacks — turned out to be the perfect preview for Seattle in 2021. It was the first of the Mariners' 14 extra-inning victories and 30 one-run victories, both the most in MLB.
If this hilarious recipe for success sounds familiar, that’s because the 2018 M’s had a similar season, albeit with only three of the same players (Mitch Haniger, Kyle Seager and Marco Gonzales).
2018 Mariners: 89-73 (.549); -34 run differential
2021 Mariners: 77-66 (.538); -57 run differential
2018 Mariners: 36-21 (.632) in one-run games
2021 Mariners: 30-18 (.625) in one-run games
2018 Mariners: 14-1 (.933) in extra-inning games
2021 Mariners: 14-6 (.700) in extra-inning games
2018 Mariners: 4.53 CLUTCH score (second in MLB)
2021 Mariners: 7.63 CLUTCH score (first in MLB by a lot)
As is the case this season, the success in close games in 2018 could largely be attributed to the bullpen. That team happened to have peak Edwin Diaz post one of the better seasons a closer has ever had: 1.96 ERA in 73.1 innings pitched with 124 strikeouts and 57 (!!!) saves.
By contrast, this year’s group is much deeper with reliable arms. Kendall Graveman gave the team 33 splendid innings before being traded. You might not know much about Drew Steckenrider or Casey Sadler, but you should know that they’ve combined for a 1.27 ERA in 99.1 innings of relief work. If you’ve watched the past two postseasons, you’ve definitely heard of Diego Castillo and Sean Doolittle, who were added to the bullpen mix midseason.
And of course, we can’t talk about this ‘pen without mentioning its new unexpected king: Paul Sewald. Sewald has gone from Mets mop-up work to striking out a higher rate of batters than every reliever not named Josh Hader, Craig Kimbrel or Liam Hendriks.
Winning this many close games has also required some especially timely hitting, another theme of the 2021 M’s. FanGraphs’ CLUTCH score measures how well a player or team hits in high-leverage situations, relative to how they normally hit. By that metric, the Mariners have been one of the most clutch teams on record, thanks in large part to Kyle Seager, J.P. Crawford and Ty France, who all rank in the top 12 in CLUTCH among qualified hitters:
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After nearly two years off following the most unfortunate of injuries, Haniger has been his usual productive self at the plate and, most importantly, has stayed healthy. But really, the story of this Mariners season on offense has been all about Crawford, France, Seager and Abraham Toro, who arrived via Houston in the Graveman trade.
With his first Gold Glove last year, Crawford started to gain some national respect for his defense, but he’s now pairing that with league-average offensive production (a lot of which has come in high-leverage situations). Plus, he has started to look like the bona fide franchise shortstop GM Jerry Dipoto envisioned when he acquired Crawford from the Phillies in December 2018 (Dipoto’s 80th trade, in case you were wondering).
France always raked in the minors, and now the Mariners are giving him a chance with every-day at-bats in the majors, mostly at 1B and DH. His OBP is inflated by his ridiculous number of HBPs, but he’s also hitting .322 since the All-Star break.
The trade of Graveman was highly controversial and brutally timed, but Toro has been everything fans could have hoped for and more, including arguably the best moment of the season.
Then there’s Seager, the longest-tenured Mariner by a half-decade, in his 11th and possibly final year in Seattle (the Mariners have a $20M team option for 2022). As with the rest of the team, his batting average (.209) might not impress, but the 33-year-old has already set a career high with 34 home runs and is on pace to produce his first 100-RBI season, all while continuing to play stellar defense at third.
If this is his last ride at T-Mobile Park, Seager is certainly going out on a high note.
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So yes, they’ve had their fair share of luck in close games, but some of these players have really stepped up. However, another way to appreciate Seattle’s place in the standings is to consider how many things have gone terribly wrong for them. After he looked exceptional in spring training, James Paxton’s return to Seattle was cut short when he needed Tommy John surgery after just one start. The aforementioned Montero, one of the Mariners’ other big offseason acquisitions, was brutally bad for three months (7.27 ERA) before being DFA’d in July.
And then there’s Jarred Kelenic.
If you had told Mariners fans in spring training that Jarred Kelenic would post a slash line in his rookie season eerily similar to Cody Bellinger's, they’d surely be overjoyed. Oh, wait ... this Cody Bellinger? The one who is likely still injured and/or had his superpowers stolen by the Monstars? Yikes.
Well, it turns out that being an MLB hitter is actually quite difficult.
These also haven’t been your average rookie struggles. Kelenic went 0-for-39 (!) before being sent back to Triple-A in June and is still hitting under .200 since his second big-league debut in July. I don’t think it was the wrong move to call him up, but the Mariners probably should have been more prepared for the possibility that he would struggle, considering his relatively tiny amount of experience in the upper minors.
I am still confident Kelenic can be a great big-league player moving forward. He has a few weeks left to finish on a strong note — and has looked better the past week or so — but the fact remains that he has indisputably hurt this team more than he has helped in 2021.
And Kelenic isn't the only rookie who has struggled immensely. Fellow hitting prospects Cal Raleigh and Taylor Trammell have had a tough time adjusting to big-league arms, and the team's top pitching prospect, Logan Gilbert, has shown glimpses of excellence but has an ERA above 5.00.
Speaking of rookies, what happened to the guy voted unanimous AL Rookie of the Year in 2020? The injury bug has returned for Kyle Lewis, who was officially shut down recently due to knee trouble after playing just 36 games this season. Additionally, Evan White, who won a Gold Glove at first base as a rookie last year, played in only 30 games before undergoing season-ending hip surgery.
Add it all up, and this team doesn't get a lot of hits. And in baseball, hits are good. Are you starting to see the issue?
The league batting average is down to .243 this season, which would be the lowest season mark since 1968 (the Year of the Pitcher), and no team is contributing to this more than these goofy Seattle Mariners, who are hitting .224 as a team. That’s 30th in MLB and — excluding last year’s shortened season, which saw a handful of teams post historically low batting averages — would be the sixth-lowest team batting average in a full season in the Integration Era (since 1947).
Here’s how the lightest-hitting teams fared:
* 1968 Yankees: .214 batting average; 83-79 record (.512 win percentage)
* 1972 Rangers: .217 BA; 54-100 (.351)
* 1963 Mets: .219 BA; 51-111 (.315)
* 1963 Astros: .220 BA; 66-96 (.407)
* 1965 Mets: .221 BA; 50-112 (.309)
* 2021 Mariners: .223 BA; 77-66 (.538)
As you can see, most of those teams were very, very bad, and they are all from roughly the same pitcher-friendly era. To be fair, the Mariners aren’t the only good team in 2021 with a notably low batting average; the Yankees, Brewers and A’s are all batting sub-.240.
But .223 is 30th out of 30 teams for a reason. That’s really low. It’s not an accident the Mariners were no-hit twice this season.
And if you’re thinking: "It's 2021! Who cares about batting average? What’s their on-base percentage?" It’s .300, or 29th in MLB, ahead of only Texas.
And yet! Here they are! Still in it!
Now that I’ve caught you up to speed, you might be wondering how I’m doing as a fan of this team.
First, it’s important that I acknowledge my perspective. I have no family ties to the Pacific Northwest. I was 7 months old when Edgar Martinez hit The Double. I obviously loved Ken Griffey Jr. and Ichiro as a kid, but I am hardly a lifelong M’s fan. I picked this silly team about a decade ago, as my baseball fandom was reaching a fever pitch. I enjoyed staying up late to watch West Coast games, and Felix Hernandez was one of the best pitchers on the planet. Yeah, that’s right: I saw a 95-loss team with Mike Carp (Carp, not Trout) as its best hitter and thought: THESE ARE MY GUYS.
Fortunately, Mariners fans welcomed me with open arms, and I’ve been hooked ever since.
My point here is that I cannot speak for longer-suffering Mariners fans who have been waiting far longer than I have to see this team finally reach the postseason promised land, let alone anything bigger. That said, 10 years is longer than a lot of fan bases go without a postseason appearance, so it’s not like I haven’t been waiting, too.
The close calls in 2014 (one game back of the wild card), 2016 (three games back) and 2018 (58-39 in the first half; 31-34 in the second) offered differing levels of postseason promise. Those teams had a lot of older veterans who played with the weight of the postseason drought but not necessarily the same verve and energy as this 2021 group, who seem to embrace the mantra of "why not us?"
The youth shows in its strengths and its flaws, but it’s a group that seems eager to take on the challenge of bringing postseason baseball back to Seattle. After all, you don't get to a +90 Fun Differential by accident. You have to earn it, and these M’s have done that and more.
Are the 2021 Mariners a good baseball team? I’m not really sure, but I don’t particularly care. Fans of other teams can point and laugh at the run differential all they want, and I can’t blame them.
If this is the team to end the drought, I’m obviously going to be thrilled. If not — and hey, they just lost a series at home to the worst team in the National League — I certainly won’t be surprised. It feels a little pathetic to say "what’s another year?" without the postseason, but it’s not like the window is closing. Rather, it's the opposite. I believe the Mariners are heading in the right direction, and they have the pieces of an actually good team in the near future, possibly (hopefully) even in 2022 — especially if ownership is willing to increase payroll.
If they squeak into the wild card this year, that’d be delightful. For now, though, I’m going to keep enjoying the ride. No matter how they finish, I’ve had a great time watching these stewards of #ChaosBall.
And whenever they finally are postseason-bound, you can be damn sure it’ll be worth the wait.
Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He lives in Maryland but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.