SEATTLE — For the first 100 games of this Major League Baseball (MLB) season, the Seattle Mariners were thoroughly average.
Quite literally too. The Mariners had won 50 games and lost 50 games at that point in the season.
The playoffs were definitely within the Mariners' range of outcomes, but there was not anything tangible in the team's results to feel that the postseason was a likelihood. The pitching was there, but Julio Rodriguez was underperforming in the first year of his lengthy contract extension. The rest of the offense, as a whole, was bereft of much pop to buoy the pitching staff.
But in the last 30 games, the Mariners have completely rewritten the story of its 2023 season, winning 24 games to surge ahead of the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros in the American League (AL) West division. Seattle erased an over eight-game deficit in the division standings in a calendar month.
During this torrid stretch, the Mariners have scored 181 runs and allowed 106 runs. That's good for an average run differential of 2.5 per game, beating the season mark set by MLB's best team, the Atlanta Braves, who have outscored its opposition by 1.7 runs per game this season.
Pythagorean expectation, a measure to calculate how well a baseball team should be performing based on runs scored and runs allowed, indicates that the Mariners have been playing at a 121-win pace since the calendar turned July 25.
Seattle was playing like an 86-win team for the first four months of the season, for what it's worth. Now, apparently, the M's are a baseball juggernaut tearing through the rest of the league with reckless abandon.
The Mariners won in series over the Blue Jays, Twins, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Angels, Padres, Royals (twice), Astros and White Sox. They've swept the Angels, Padres, Royals and Astros. Two of those sweeps were on the road.
So what's changed?
Julio is back, baby
In his first season after inking a massive contract extension worth up to $470 million, Rodriguez was hovering around the league-average in on-base percentage plus slugging percentage (OPS), a metric that is a quick way of valuing a hitter through the two key components of hitting: getting on base and hitting for power.
Through the first 100 games, Rodriguez was hitting just .244, getting on base just over 31% of the time (not great) and hitting for a .709 OPS. (The MLB average has been a .734 OPS this season). He was still stealing bases, playing tremendous center field and contributing positively to the team. It just wasn't quite at the level to justify the Mariners' large investment in the 21-year-old.
Seattle's winning stretch has coincided with a Rodriguez-hitting surge for the ages. His batting average has been nearly .400. He's gotten on base over 44% of the time. His OPS is 1.145, a mark higher than Shohei freaking Ohtani, the man who was putting together the best individual season of all time. He's hit for nine home runs, drove in 33 runs, and stolen 12 bases in the past month.
This is a lot of numbers to digest, but let's just go with this to encapsulate Rodriguez's ascent: Over a full season, he'd be hitting 52 home runs, driving in 191 runs batted in and stealing 69 stolen bases.
That...is certainly worth over $200 million, I'd say.
Along with positive contributions from across the lineup, the Mariners have erased any doubt its offense could be good enough to contend.
The three-headed pitching monster
It's fitting that the Mariners' season changed on the day George Kirby started.
By every measure, the 25-year-old has been one of the best pitchers in baseball. He's produced 3.9 wins above replacement (WAR), the third-best total in the AL.
Kirby has tossed 39 strikeouts and just three walks in his last six starts, a stunning example of the command he has in his second full season.
Through Kirby, Luis Castillo and Logan Gilbert, the Mariners have three starting pitchers routinely pitching over six innings per start. All three pitchers strike out over one batter per inning. All three have earned run averages (ERA) under 3.5. All three are throwing strikes on over two-thirds of their pitches.
The Mariners' three-headed pitching monster has made it easy for the team to build leads, save its bullpen from unnecessary workload and churn out consistent wins.
Tumbling Rangers
It also helps that the Mariners' main competition in the AL West is floundering at this point.
The Rangers were pacing the division, winning 59 of its first 100 games. Texas is 14-16 since and has lost nine of its last 10 games to tumble out of first place.
Houston has been a metronome of consistency, in some sense. They won 56% of games before July 25 and have won 56% of games since.
The wheels fell off the metaphorical wagon, though, when the Astros lost three consecutive home games to the Mariners from Aug. 18-20.
These specific set of circumstances -- Seattle's best player performing at a historic clip, its pitching staff reaching another level, and a few untimely slip-ups from its competitors -- have set up a fascinating run-in to finish this season.
Your Seattle Mariners are, yes, leading the AL West division by one game with a month of baseball remaining.
Can the Mariners keep this up?
The Mariners' hold of the division is precarious right now, but the schedule sets up favorably for a positive finish to the season.
Some highlights:
- 6 games against the bottom-dwelling Oakland A's
- 3 games against the reeling New York Mets
- 3 against the Angels without Shohei
freakingOhtani - 7 against Rangers (4 home, 3 away)
- 3 against Astros (all at home)
It's a light schedule competition-wise, but the fate of the division rests in how the Mariners fare in 10 straight games against Houston and Texas to close the season.
If the past 30 days are any indication of what to expect in late September, the Astros and Rangers are in for a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time.