Mariners’ 18-inning playoff loss was still worth the wait for fans

SEATTLE — One of the things I love about postseason baseball is that they introduce the entire team before each game — the entire team: players, coaches, support staff. This means that when the Seattle Mariners played their first home playoff game in 7,667 days on Saturday, clubhouse assistant Chris DeWitt and head athletic trainer Kyle Torgerson and batting practice pitcher Nasusel Cabrera, among others, lined up along the first baseline to have their names announced to a crowd of 47,690 just bursting at the seams with anticipation. It wasn’t quite the ovation Luis Castillo or Scott Servais or Cal Raleigh received, but so many of the people who helped to take a team from trivia answer to American League Division Series were cheered by a fan base that was waited patiently — or not patiently, but forced to wait anyway — for 21 years to do so.

It took a resounding 2-0 series victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in the best-of-three wild card round — complete with a comeback you could’ve called unbelievable except that believing is kind of Mariner fans’ thing — to go from ending the drought to hosting a playoff game. But by the time the ALDS got to Seattle, the Mariners were already down 2-0 to a Houston Astros team that finished the regular season 16 games ahead of them and was looking to make their AL-record sixth-straight championship series. After all this time, Seattle was only guaranteed one single postseason game in their city.

So they made the most of it. By 10 a.m. they were already lined up outside for a 1 p.m. start. When a foghorn blared at 10:40 to signal the opening of the gates, they cheered and streamed into the stadium in their JRod Derby and Big Dumper shirts. By the time erstwhile ace and icon of an earlier Mariners’ era Félix Hernández threw out the ceremonial first pitch, the stadium was a humming blue-green sea of anticipation. And then they stayed — roaring at every Mariners baserunner (there weren’t many), dying on every long fly ball that was caught on the track, standing for every two-strike count on the Astros, and booing José Altuve no matter how many times he came to the plate — for the last six hours and 22 minutes of the Mariners’ 2022 season.

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And when Julio Rodríguez, the hero of this season and the hope for the future, lined the 498th pitch of the day right into Houston center fielder Mauricio Dubón‘s glove for the final out, they didn’t go home right away. It had taken a historic 18 innings for the Astros to turn a stalemate into a 1-0 victory, which completed a three-game sweep. But as fans celebrated yet another chance at the pennant on Seattle’s field, the crowd broke into a spontaneous “Let’s go Mariners!” chant. And even though it was too late for any motivation to matter, the cathartic collective eulogy proved just how important it was to play postseason baseball in front of these fans.

Mariners show they belong with mighty Astros

Even before the two teams traded zeros for hours and innings on end as day turned to dusk turned to night, the Mariners — players, manager, executives — would tell you they could have won either one of those first two games in Houston, if not for a couple mistakes to Houston slugger Yordan Álvarez.

You can call that cold comfort, but it gave them hope heading into Game 3. The Astros have been the best team in the American League for a while now, and no one in Seattle pretends otherwise. The Mariners were happy to end the drought, but they have championship aspirations. To get there — if not now then maybe next year — they’d have to show they could give Houston a run for their money.

In the end, they were swept — but only after they proved perfectly, maddeningly evenly matched for almost the equivalent of two whole games on Saturday.

The Mariners pride themselves on their pitching. It’s the foundation of a young core they hope will keep them competitive for years to come. And on Saturday, it was resplendent. In his first postseason start, rookie George Kirby — whose guileless face and gangly affect belies what his manager called an “edge” borne of being from New York — pitched seven scoreless innings. At the epicenter of an entire region’s pent-up angst, he remained unflappable, allowing eight base runners — six hits, and two batters hit by pitches — without letting a single Astros player cross home plate.

Nine relievers, and Robbie Ray again pushed into relief, spent the next 11 innings largely defanging a fearsome, battle-tested Astros lineup. Altuve struck out three times while going 0-for-8. Yordan Alvarez struck out twice while going 0-for-7. Rodríguez looked like an action hero making a catch that would have been remembered as game-saving if they’d gone on to win. And Cal Raleigh caught 18 innings — 236 pitches, including one that seemed to snap a plastic brace he’d been using — with a broken thumb and torn ligaments.

The problem was that pitching is also the Astros’ strength.

Ultimately, the only run scored in 133 combined plate appearances came in the top of the 18th. Jeremy Peña, the charismatic rookie who replaced Astros mainstay Carlos Correa at shortstop, smashed a not-even-90 mph four-seam fastball from Penn Murfee for a 415-foot solo shot. One pitch in nearly 500 that made all the difference.

“I don’t feel like we could have played them any tougher than we did,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “Today was the epitome of that.”

Hard to tell if that makes the loss better or worse.

The sudden ending of October

While both teams drained their bullpens and repurposed starters into long relief, Logan Gilbert, another young Mariners pitcher whose success in his sophomore season made this playoff run possible, remained on the bench. He was Seattle’s Game 4 pitcher, should the series come to that. And they were all really really hoping it would come to that.

After the game, as the Mariners clapped each other on the back ruefully and wrapped one another in lingering bear hugs, Gilbert still couldn’t quite get himself to realize that he would not, in fact, be pitching the next day.

“I did everything to get ready for tomorrow knowing we’re going to have a game, planning on winning,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s completely hit me. I feel like we’re all gonna show up tomorrow and play another game. But sadly we’re not.”

For years, they’ve done this part — the thank yous and goodbyes, the boxing up of stuff — after a scheduled 162 games. But the end comes more abruptly in October.

“It’s a little harder,” Mitch Haniger, the longest tenured Mariners player, who will enter free agency this offseason, said. “We thought it was going to end in November.”

“I feel like I proved I belong,” Raleigh said as he tried to take stock of the season, talking about himself but describing the Mariners as a whole. “Going into this year, I was still unsure. And you know, you have confidence and you believe in yourself, but it’s hard when you don’t put up the numbers.”

They talked about 2023, how it’s “gonna be more fun than this year,” as Eugenio Suárez said, and how they “showed the city what’s to come,” as Jarred Kelenic said.

“I’m not stressing!” Rodríguez insisted a little loudly when someone tried to console him with congratulations. And then he smacked the side of a locker as he strode by it.

It meant a lot to Seattle

After the fans had gone and the Astros’ celebration mostly subsided, presenters of the Mariners’ grounds crew and security staff gathered around the POSTSEASON signage stenciled on the grass along the first base line. They handed their phones to one another and in permuting giddy, groups of coworkers and friends took photos of each other on the field.

You don’t get anything for winning a series except the opportunity to play more baseball. Even in the end, champions receive rings and a trophy, only to do it all again come spring. Sports are like safely playacting at geopolitical conflict — but the city of Seattle doesn’t annex Houston if they advance. It’s all just symbolism, in a sense.

For the Mariners, in particular, though, the opportunity to play more baseball meant a great deal to a lot of people.

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