Seattle Mariners end playoff drought, clinch postseason spot with walkoff win

We’re drought­less here in Seattle!

After miss­ing the MLB play­offs for a record twen­ty-one straight sea­sons, the Seat­tle Mariners swept aside over two decades of mis­ery tonight and began mak­ing bet­ter new mem­o­ries by clinch­ing one of the Amer­i­can League’s three wild-card spots in an exhil­a­rat­ing 2–1 walkoff win over the Oak­land Ath­let­ics that end­ed when catch­er Cal Raleigh hit a home run off the win­dows of the Hit It Here Cafe.

The vic­to­ry brought the longest ongo­ing drought in pro­fes­sion­al sports to an end in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion, send­ing the very ready sold-out crowd at T‑Mobile Park into a mas­sive, rau­cous cel­e­bra­tion. Mariners play­ers donned Octo­ber Rise shirts and caps and took a team pho­to out on the field as the dis­play boards in the parks shim­mered with the word “CLINCHED” repeat­ed over and over.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to our Mariners… we are going to the play­offs and watch out, our pitch­ing and defense are excel­lent and in a short series that’s what you want,” tweet­ed Mariners leg­end and Hall of Famer Edgar Mar­tinez, who was on the last Mariners squad to make the play­offs (and tie the MLB record for reg­u­lar sea­son wins) all the way back in 2001. That was before Twit­ter, Face­book, Insta­gram, and Tik­Tok; back in the days when most homes con­nect­ed to the Inter­net over 56K dialup con­nec­tions and Block­buster had over 5,000 stores across the country.

Yes, it real­ly and tru­ly has been that long since the Mariners were in the post­sea­son. The last time the M’s qual­i­fied, this pub­li­ca­tion did not exist. Per­ma­nent Defense would not be found­ed for anoth­er five months. NPI would not be found­ed for anoth­er two years. The youngest Mariners fans have wait­ed their entire lives for this moment, hav­ing not expe­ri­enced the “Refuse to Lose” era of the mid-1990s with Ken Grif­fey, Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy John­son, Jay Buh­n­er, Dan “The Man” Wil­son, Lou Piniel­la, and of course, Edgar… or even the incred­i­ble 116-win sea­son with Ichi­ro, Bret Boone, John Olerud, and many more.

Back in June, when the team was find­ing it dif­fi­cult to win ear­ly in the sea­son, few saw the Mariners end­ing their drought this year. Odd­s­mak­ers rat­ed the team’s chances of mak­ing the play­offs in the sin­gle dig­its.

But the team bat­tled on, led by young star (and Rook­ie of the Year!) Julio Rodriguez. New arrivals like Rob­bie Ray, Euge­nio Suarez, Luis Castil­lo, and Car­los San­tana — some acquired through mid­sea­son trades — made cru­cial­ly impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions. (Rodriguez and Castil­lo are here to stay for awhile, hav­ing both signed mul­ti­year deals with Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Jer­ry Dipoto.)

Before the All-Star Break, the Mariners found their groove, putting togeth­er a four­teen game win streak that helped vault them into con­tention for a wild card spot. In the sec­ond half of the sea­son, they avoid­ed a late August col­lapse, putting togeth­er qual­i­ty wins against teams like the Atlanta Braves and the Cleve­land Guardians. They did­n’t win every series, of course, but they stayed above .500 and remained com­pet­i­tive with the league’s oth­er top wild card con­tenders, the Toron­to Blue Jays and the Tam­pa Bay Rays.

Vic­to­ry cig­ar in hand, Man­ag­er Scott Ser­vais addressed Mariners fans from the field at T‑Mobile Park after the win, declar­ing that the team was only just get­ting start­ed and urg­ing fans to rel­ish a very, very spe­cial moment in team history.

My oh my. Wher­ev­er Dave Niehaus is right now, he is rev­el­ing in the mag­ic that this team has cre­at­ed. The per­se­ver­ance and resilience of these Mariners are a great gift to the City of Seat­tle and the Pacif­ic North­west in try­ing times.

Go M’s! Just a few games left in the reg­u­lar sea­son and then on to the playoffs!