At the break, Mariners in position to end playoff drought
Seattle Mariners second baseman Dee Gordon (9) makes the throw to first baseman Ryon Healy, retiring the Colorado Rockies' Gerardo Parra in the third inning on Friday, July 6, 2018, at Safeco Field in Seattle. (Dean Rutz/Seattle Times/TNS)
SEATTLE (AP) — At some point it’s going to end. The feeling of imminent failure among some Seattle fans is going to manifest on the field and this unexpected season is going to start crumbling until it’s just like each of the previous seasons since the Mariners last made the playoffs in 2001. It has to, right?
That feeling is what nearly two decades without postseason baseball has created in the Pacific Northwest. While there is genuine excitement for what Seattle accomplished in the first 3½ months of the season there’s also a sense of dread among the most fatalistic fans who have seen promising seasons go south before, and it won’t go away until the Mariners officially end the longest current postseason drought in any of the four major pro sports.
Lucky for the doubters, this team is showing the type of resilience needed to do just that.
“I think the thing I’m most proud of, I guess, with this group is the ability for them to be as tight as they are,” Seattle manager Scott Servais said. “I think there’s a special bond within our team and it plays out on the field.”
The Mariners are sitting at 58-39 and hold a three-game lead for the second wild-card spot heading into the second half of the season. What makes that remarkable is the Mariners have overcome enough obstacles thus far to derail most teams.
Five different starting position players have spent time on the disabled list and catcher Mike Zunino is currently on his second stint on the DL. Their bullpen has seen another four key arms go down at various times all the way back to spring training,
And that doesn’t take into consideration the 80-game suspension of second baseman Robinson Cano. Rather than disrupt what Seattle had going, Cano’s suspension seemed to galvanize the team. Seattle is 36-22 since Cano’s suspension started.
“I think just team chemistry carries a team further than a lot of people think and just when guys are all on the same page and fighting for one another ... that’s the big picture and it keeps everyone focused on that instead of their own individual performances and stuff like that,” outfielder Mitch Haniger said.
Seattle’s success in the first half was based around beating the bad teams in the American League. The Mariners were 51-22 against the rest of the AL not named the Red Sox, Astros or Yankees.