Washington pro sports recap for Oct. 6

SEATTLE – The drought is over.

The Seattle Mariners ended the longest active playoff drought in American sports on Friday, when they clinched a wild card in the American League. The Seahawks joined the Mariners’ winning ways with a win of their own on Sunday, and the Kraken inch closer to the beginning of the NHL season.

Mariners

On Friday, Cal Raleigh’s solo home run in the bottom of the ninth inning against Oakland sent the Mariners into the playoffs in spectacular fashion, giving Seattle its first postseason appearance since 2001.

The Mariners won their first series in over two weeks when they hosted the Texas Rangers Sept. 27-29, winning two games after dropping the first matchup in a 5-0 loss. With their magic number down to one and the beginning of a series with the Oakland Athletics on Friday, the Mariners clinched in front of over 44,000 fans inside T-Mobile Park.

A 5-1 win over Oakland on Saturday gave Seattle its second straight series win despite the 10-3 loss on Sunday.

Seattle began its final home stand of the regular season with a four-game set against Detroit on Monday. The Tigers won the first matchup and the Mariners won both games of a doubleheader on Tuesday, winning the first game 7-6 in 10 innings and the second game 9-6.

Outfielder Julio Rodríguez returned from his stint on the 10-day injured list on Monday after being placed on the list with a lower back injury. However, while Rodríguez returned, Seattle lost utility player Sam Haggerty to a groin injury in Monday’s loss to Detroit. Haggerty headed to the 10-day injured list on Tuesday with the first round of the playoffs beginning on Monday.

The Mariners will begin the postseason on the road against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday. The best-of-three series will be determined once one team wins two games and runs through Sunday.

Seahawks

After scoring 47 points through the team’s first three games of the season, the Seahawks surpassed that mark in Week 4 alone – Seattle’s 48-45 win over Detroit was tied for the 10th-most combined points in a game in NFL history.

In a game that saw over 1,000 yards of offense over the course of the game’s 60 minutes, Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith completed 23 of 30 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns and added 49 yards and a score as a runner. Smith had his second game this season without a turnover, both of which ended as wins for Seattle. Complementing Smith’s performance was running back Rashaad Penny, who rushed for 151 yards and two scores on 17 carries in the win. All in all, the Seahawks rushed for 235 yards on 33 carries Sunday, which more than doubled their total rushing yards for the season entering Week 4 (224 in Weeks 1-3).

While each team’s offense shines in a shootout, the defense comes into question for Seattle. Through four games the Seahawks have allowed over 1,700 yards of offense to opposing teams, giving up 428 yards per game to teams. While Detroit’s offense has impressed through the first four weeks (at least 386 offensive yards in each game), this has been a recurring trend through the season’s first month. The fewest yards allowed in a game so far this season was the 373 to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 2, a game where San Francisco’s starting quarterback Trey Lance was injured in the first quarter. The defense isn’t making up for gained yardage in other ways either, as they check in at the fourth-fewest sacks in the league with seven and are tied with eight other teams at 12th in total takeaways (6).

The Seahawks are back on the road next week as they head to New Orleans to face the Saints, who are coming off a trip across the pond to London and have five starters questionable with injuries as of Tuesday.

Kraken

The Kraken began the preseason with four-straight wins, scoring at least three goals in each win. They suffered their first loss of the preseason on Monday, losing 4-1 in a road matchup against the Calgary Flames. With less than a week left of the regular season, Seattle will play its sixth and final preseason game on Friday on the road against the Edmonton Oilers.

The 15 goals scored by Seattle are the ninth-most in the NHL preseason, with center Matty Beniers leading the way with three goals in as many preseason games.