Storylines I'm thinking about heading into the Postseason

A little riffing while the Mariners bide their time.

How luxurious is this?

Game 162 came and went without a care in the world. The Mariners played a meaningless series to conclude the regular season and still have more baseball to play.

Not only that, but we also got to watch a bunch of good teams and their fans sweat out three-game series that can turn faster than my old 2006 Honda Element. Unreal turning radius on those things.

The Yankees were on the brink. Always good when the Yankees are on the brink.

Hell, everyone but the Dodgers found themselves on the brink

Not being on the brink is awesome. Let’s keep that going indefinitely.

Before taking action on that front, let’s hit some good and some bad heading into the biggest weekend for baseball in Seattle in 25 years.

You always wanna have to win fewer games

Unless the Mariners score three runs in the first on Saturday night, there will be talk about whether or not the Mariners are rusty. It’s obviously a concern, not just for the Mariners but with all the top seeds on both sides of the bracket.

It’s why you see these public scrimmages becoming commonplace.

There’s reason behind it, too—baseball is a game of rhythm, a game of grind. Guys have their routines and, when you’re rolling, you don’t wanna stop.

“Never fuck with a winning streak” is how Crash Davis put it.

The Mariners aren’t coming in on a winning streak—clinching the divison and facing the Dodgers took care of that. But they got to where they are with a hot run in September.

It’s fair to wonder if that mojo sticks around after a week of not playing competitive games.

But even then, having to win fewer games is better. It’s always better.

You can’t lose games you don’t play. You can’t get hurt in games you don’t play. Your arm doesn’t get tired in games you don’t play.

It was almost jarring to hear, in the Tigers’ clubhouse champagne video, manager A.J. Hinch mention the goal of “11 more” wins.

Hey, that’s the total number of wins the Mariners need to win it all, without playing any. They got a banner on the outside of the ballpark and everything.

Eleven for a title and seven for the first pennant in Mariners history.

That’s not very many wins. Go get ‘em.

The Bryan Woo situation is quite bad

There’s not much dancing around it—this sucks, dude.

After throwing a bullpen today, Thursday, he said this:

“A positive day,” Woo said. “I’m still not where I want to be in terms of game speed of everything, but in terms of how everything’s progressed, I’m happy with it, considering a week ago I wasn’t even throwing yet. And then a week from now, hopefully, we’ll be in a better spot.”

“A week from now” would be the day before game five, if Woo’s even on the ALDS roster at all. Hopefully he’s not being literal, since that’d potentially thrust Bryce Miller into a Postseason start or have the Mariners turn to Logan or Luis on three days rest.

If “hopefully he’ll be ready to rock for game four” isn’t enough copium for you, here’s some more: maybe there’s some gamesmanship going on.

In a notable shift under Dan Wilson, the Mariners have leaned towards keeping details on injuries a little more cloudy when doing so could give them a slight competitive edge.

There’s been a few times this year when guys were scratched late, or never in the lineup in the first place, and the Mariners waited to give any kind of update until postgame—so, seemingly leave open the possibility in the opposition’s mind that the guy might be available to pinch hit.

I wouldn’t put it past them to mess around a little here. That said, there isn’t a ton of leeway between what messing around and not messing around would look like.

Both Ryan Divish and Daniel Kramer reporting the Mariners would likely want to see Woo throw off a mound twice before he makes a start suggests to me this is coming straight from the club but off the record.

So that means this weekend is out.

There’s been all this talk about how you line up the rotation, who you start at home, who you start on the road and so on but it’s really pretty simple: you want your best guy to start as many games as possible.

For the Mariners, that isn’t happening.

Realistically, they’ll be lucky to have their ace on the division series roster at all.

Home field will be a factor

The last time Mariners fans in Seattle watched their team score a run at home in the Postseason, it was a Stan Javier two-run home run to dead-center off Mike Mussina in game two of the 2001 ALCS.

Dan Wilson watched from the on-deck circle.

The building known then as Safeco Field will be rocking come Saturday night.

The lone home game in 2022 was both torturous and cathartic. Tantalizing, too.

As fans, we were optimistic the club could rip off three straight—but they were the clear and significant underdog at that point.

This weekend, it’s the opposite. The Mariners are the better team and the rested team, playing in their own building with a chance to set the tone for the, hopefully, weeks to follow.

Not only that, but it’s a 5pm start. We will be rowdy. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

And as Seattle’s shown across the street, that fervor can be a legitimate factor in games. It will be a tough place to play for opponents and a fun place to play if you’re a Seattle Mariner.

It isn’t only the fans that could provide a home field advantage, either.

The Detroit Tigers haven’t slept in their own beds since finishing up a series against the Braves on the 21st of last month. They then went to Cleveland then Boston then Cleveland again and as I write this part of the post, they’re readying to board a five-hour flight to Seattle.

Any team that comes to Seattle, at any point, has a long flight to get there. It’s the most remote ballpark in baseball. The Mariners, if anyone can be, are used to this level of travel.

For everyone else, it’s going to be a lot of time in the air and a three-hour time difference.

That’s before we even get into the daily skirmishes with antifa going to and from the hotel.

The middle infield defense is a concern

If you’ve been watching these Wild Card series so far, you’ve seen some outstanding defensive plays from shortstops and second basemen.

The Cubs had enormous plays from Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner in back-to-back innings. Ryan McMahon, at third for the Yankees, flipped into the dugout on a snag better than Derek Jeter’s icon catch-and-stumble.

In low-scoring Postseason games, every baserunner counts. Preventing them is huge.

That is not the Mariners’ infield’s strong suit—particularly not up the middle where it’s most important. On the year, the Mariners infield finished third-worst in baseball by Outs Above Average.

The best version of their lineup has Jorge Polanco at second to complement J.P. Crawford at short. Polanco was a tick below average by OAA (-2) whereas Crawford, again using OAA, was the second-worst defensive shortstop in the game.

The mental and fundamental lapses were more pronounced in 2025 but the bigger factor is what casual fans don’t see—those being the balls Crawford just can’t get to.

Diving plays are fun, but they can be misleading.

The more plays you can make without diving, the better. For J.P., that number is in decline.

Home runs are big and the Mariners have the dudes to hit them

Only the Yankees and the Dodgers hit more home runs than the Mariners in 2025.

In the Postseason, these national broadcasters love to talk about how you have to do the little things to win at this stage. And that’s partly true.

But you really gotta do the big things, too—and one of the biggest things is whackin’ some homers.

The WSJ and Jared Diamond have a great piece that hits on this, highlighted by the following chart.

Huh, would you look at that—the team that hit the third-most home runs in baseball has won the World Series three of the last four years. And hey, that’s the M’s.

More from WSJ:

No matter what time of year it is, home runs are always correlated with winning. Teams that out-homer their opponents have won 76.5% of their regular-season games this decade.

In the playoffs, though, the effect is amplified dramatically, with the club that hits more homers winning a whopping 84% of the time over that span. The team that bashes more home runs in a postseason series has a winning percentage of .800.

Diamond even spoke with our guys.

So while other elements on offense are important, Mariners general manager Justin Hollander says, “They are not as important as hitting homers.”

“Sometimes you can over-talk about the little things and not just focus on the obvious thing,” Hollander continues, “which is: Teams who hit it over the fence a lot are usually pretty good.”

The Mariners will have to hit homers to win these series. That’s what they’re built to do. But you have to make it happen—and can’t go cold for a couple days.

On the other side of it, a couple guys get hot and the bats can dominate a series.

So many potential heroes

There are few things I enjoy more in life than putting the words “ALCS MVP” in front of second- or third-tier Mariners hitters.

There are just so many characters in the mix here, so many guys who could get hot and push the season another week longer damn near on their own. Not only do they have guys who have been there but they have guys who have been there and excelled.

Mitch Garver—Mitch Garver!!!—has big Postseason moments in a title run. I wouldn’t bet on him here and am presently dreading seeing his name in the lineup to face Skubal but there are so many dudes between him and the superstars in Julio and Cal.

Geno can have hot streaks like few in the sport. Randy is battle-proven for club and country. Polo’s entire arc screams “best player in a three-game ALDS sweep.” Josh Naylor will keep being the neon colored straw in a pint-sized gin and tonic.

And then you do still have the MVP and Julio.

So many guys who could and should rise to the moment.

The shift in schedule helps cover bullpen’s soft underbelly

The Mariners will be hurt by the increase in off days before they’re helped by it, with Tigers ace Tarik Skubal being ready to rock on full rest for game two and then available for another start in game four or five.

On the other side of it though, the bullpen gets to reset basically every couple days.

If we’re being honest, the Mariners have four guys down there they trust:

• Andrés Muñoz

• Matt Brash

• Gabe Speier

• Eduard(o) Bazardo

Unless things go off the rails, you shouldn’t have to go that much deeper than that. You’d really love to have Jhoan Duran dropped in that top four to bump out Bazardo but, hey, that isn’t our reality.

As is, that’s solid to good—especially with the top. They have a solid advantage here over the Tigers.

They can add to it if they starting pitching depth provides them not only an increase in starting pitcher inning quality but also quantity.

The hook is shorter this time of year but if the Mariners starts can go five, six or seven when the non-Skubal guys go three, four and five, their starting pitching depth can almost entirely erase the weakest point in the roster, which is bridging the gap to the leverage arms.

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That’s all we got. Or close. Small stuff I’m also thinking about but will refrain from fleshing out for one reason or another:

• Dan Wilson scares me

• Tarik Skubal scares me way more

• They gotta have game one

• This weekend is so special and I can’t stop thinking about it

With that, we’ll have another post up on Saturday morning, likely a quick column-type dealio.

Let’s have some fun this October.

I’m gonna flip the paid option back on because, mostly, I think Substack juices publications that do that but, second, hey if you wanna support this venture and effectively buy me a beer or two at the ballpark, I won’t stop you.

Thanks for reading. I do appreciate it.

Go M’s.