Mariners clinch first playoff appearance since 2022

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Sep 24, 2025

Published in Baseball

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Two years ago, on the second to last day of the regular season, they silently watched their playoff hopes end on the televisions in their own clubhouse of T-Mobile Park.

There were curse words muttered under the breath and terse words from a young catcher, frustrated with the failure, demanding more from the front office and ownership.

A year ago, they were eliminated from postseason contention on an off-day at home leading into the final three-game series of the season. It was outcome that seemed inevitable. They had been mathematically alive, but realistically they were ostensibly done days earlier due to their failures weeks and months before that day.

Hoping other teams fail to offset your failures is no way to make the postseason.

Not this year, not this team.

“You want to control your own destiny,” Cal Raleigh, that aforementioned young catcher, said just a few days earlier. “You don’t want to rely on someone else.”

On Tuesday night, they relied on themselves to secure a spot in the American League playoffs, rallying from an unexpected two-run deficit going into the bottom of the eighth in a way so typical of their second-half surge — a group effort and a big two-out hit.

Josh Naylor, the trade deadline acquisition who has grown into a fan favorite in just a few months with his mixture of grump and thump, gave an anxious crowd of 35,925 on their feet in anticipation of something special, the defining moment in a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies.

With two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and the Mariners trailing, 3-1, Naylor torched a 98-mph fastball from Victor Vodnik, sending a linedrive into the left-center gap to clear the bases and give the Mariners a one-run lead.

When Andres Muñoz struck out Kyle Karros to end the bottom of the ninth for a 1-2-3 inning and his 37th save, a stadium-shaking roar of triumph and jubilation filled the night air. It was a salute to a team that won it their way.

But there will be more celebrations ahead, the Mariners can clinch the American League West Division title and one of two top seeds in the AL in the coming days.

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