Eighty-one and eighty-one won the AL West. All we had to do was be perfectly mid, and we finished five games under that as the preseason AL favorite. Most Mariners thing that has ever happened. In hindsight the WBC handshake drama between Randy and Cal was the tell. If a handshake can throw off your mojo in March, it was never going to be the year.

Dan Wilson is out, and we think it comes down to leadership. His hands-off, let-the-players-lead approach worked when Cal was having an unbelievable season and the roster took care of itself. It fell apart once Cal got hurt and nobody was steering. The club told him the Friday before the finale and let him make the announcement himself, which he earned. The next hire has to have managed before, and Lovullo is already off the board. We both believe that if they pull a Red Sox and make the change in June, we are playing a playoff game tonight.

The defense was the ugliest part. Julio's no-fly zone is gone and the mental mistakes piled up, including playing catch with a fan with two outs. Randy's problem was effort, like the fly ball he gave up on in Tampa while Castillo stared a hole through him. He also led baseball in runs, and we doubt he's back at any price. Cole Young and his plus-16 defensive runs saved was the only plus glove on the roster. Perry Hill, Eric Young Jr. and Kevin Seitzer are all gone so the new manager can bring his own staff.

September was supposed to be the easy part. Instead a 42-year-old diced us up in Toronto, the A's walked us off twice in Sacramento, and we lost five of seven to them.

Deadline grade: one for two. Dominguez was solid after a rough first outing. Taylor Ward led the league in walks, got traded here and became the worst hitter in baseball. Alex Hoppe, the arm we gave up, looked good in Baltimore. At least Castillo is gone and we never have to say "piggyback" again. Also on the never-again list: Refsnyder, Connor Joe, Buddy Kennedy and the WBC. Brendan Donovan has not been seen since his August concussion and we would like proof of life. Meanwhile Ben Williamson is in the playoffs with Tampa while our third basemen let everything roll through.

The good stuff: Canzone refused to be a platoon guy and became the everyday three hitter. Cal was top ten in fWAR from mid-August on and still got to 23 homers. Randy's game against the Cubs had a leadoff homer, a robbed homer and a walk-off homer. Kade Anderson started to find it. Naylor stole 30 bags, somehow, and his missing power makes more sense now that he's had wrist surgery. Rick Rizzs got his goodbye, and we hope J.P. gets a better send-off than Kyle Seager did. Ryan Rowland-Smith hitting tanks in a Steve Irwin outfit was the best part of 50th anniversary weekend.

For next year, the big worry is Julio, who has gotten a little worse every season and is still Ryan's favorite player. We'd give Jerry one more manager cycle, and we wonder out loud how much say he really had in hiring Dan. The rotation should be fine if Kirby stays locked in and Gilbert stops chasing punchies.

Playoff picks: Rays out of the AL, and Braves over everybody, mostly because we refuse to watch another franchise win its first title before we do. We'll be back for a postseason recap and again when there's a manager. Thanks for sticking with us through a September we didn't want to talk about either.

We're calling this stretch a roller coaster, and it earned the name. In Milwaukee we opened with as ugly a loss as you'll see, a 22-3 blowout where Julio lost track of outs and fired a ball into the stands, and the Brewers didn't even need their bullpen to close it, a position player did the job. We answered with a 7-run first two innings and held on to avoid the sweep, but George got rocked early in the finale and we dropped the series to the best team in baseball. Small mercy: we got our win in.

Cal Raleigh's turnaround has been the story of the last two weeks. He moved his hands up in his swing, his plate decisions have sharpened, and it started right around when he stopped internalizing everything and told the New York media what's done is done. He backed it up with a three-run homer Friday that set up a Leo Rivas walk-off after Andres Munoz let Bregman tie it, one of two rare Munoz slip-ups since June and July. With Woo skipping a turn for a shoulder issue, Cade Anderson made his debut against a tough lineup and gave us almost six quality innings and three runs, more movement than velocity, already clearly more pitcher than thrower.

Then came the Randy game. Arozarena led off with a first-pitch homer, robbed one in the outfield to save Cade's bid, and with two outs in the ninth down two runs to a closer who hadn't allowed a run in 25 innings, Weston Wilson doubled, Rivas bled one through, and Randy walked it off to dead center. Bookend homers with a robbery in between. We haven't seen that kind of fight in a while.

Sunday reminded us who we can still be. Bryce Miller gave up two grand slams in a 19-0 loss, walked the bases loaded, and leaned on a splitter that's never a strike even with seven pitches to choose from. His velocity has been sliding since Texas and something's clearly wrong, whether that means the IL or a bullpen conversation soon.

The Phillies series turned into a showcase. Julio hit his 20th off Zach Wheeler, Logan Gilbert stranded Philadelphia's red-hot lineup all night, and Cal put up the first three-homer game at T-Mobile since Edgar in '99, lefty power we hadn't seen from him in a while. Kirby followed with 21 whiffs, a season high, and flirted with the first complete game since 2023 before Dan went to the pen. Munoz got shaky with his fastball command but found the slider when he needed it. We couldn't finish the sweep though. Lazaro shut us out with basically two pitches, and Woo, back from his skipped turn, had the velocity but not the location at home, and Bryce Harper made him pay for it.

We sit two and a half back of Houston in the West with 29 games left and the easiest schedule in baseball coming in September, outside one gauntlet series in Boston. Toronto is up next against Dylan Cease, and their bullpen and clutch hitting look as shaky as ours have all year, so we like our chances there.

Injury front is ugly. Brendan Donovan took a ball off the dome in BP and landed back on the IL, Matt Brash looks like a lost cause on the 60-day, and Carlos Vargas is finally back and already useful. Colt Emerson tried to play through a wrist injury, kept it quiet, and now needs season-ending surgery. Naylor is banged up too and nearly added a second team concussion in two months before somehow staying in the game.

We're also done watching Dan rest guys who don't need rest in games we can't afford to lose, but full credit to Dominic Canzone, who's turned into a genuine everyday bat and not just a lefty platoon piece anymore. Looking ahead, Randy's a rental probably taking East Coast money this winter, and if Gino clears waivers cheap we'd take the swing-and-miss for the vibes. Mostly we just want Jerry to find a right-handed bat instead of more pitching and let this team play like the Brewers: get on, get over, get in.

Deadline day, the second of the three real baseball holidays, and this one landed with a thud. Not much moved league-wide, and the Mariners came into it having lost fourteen of twenty, sitting on the worst offense in baseball and the lowest team batting average. The pitching is the only reason this isn't a sixty-win team. Somehow that adds up to three games back in the AL West, because everyone around us is a train wreck too.

Since the break it's been 7-9 and no road series win in two and a half months. The Giants series went 2-1 our way after an ugly 7-0 opener. The Reds series was the same movie in reverse: George Kirby and the pen shut them out 8-0 behind a Cal Raleigh grand slam after Cincinnati walked Canzone in a lefty-lefty spot to get to him, then two straight duds. Everybody starts saying we turned a corner, and then Texas happened. Three of four gone, the rotation shelled all week, Kirby giving up four homers, Woo giving up five runs because road Woo has an ERA near eight. We could have left Arlington up two and a half. We left third. In LA we won the opener on five homers, with Cal and Julio going deep in the same game for the first time since April, Canzone hitting two, and Refsnyder off the foul pole. Then one hit in six innings against Eric Lauer. Not Yamamoto. Lauer.

The Twins weekend was the whole season in three games. Friday we load the bases in the first, get two on a Raleigh ground-rule double, Cole Young homers, and the offense goes dark. Twins chip away, 5-3, and we drop to 53-58. Saturday was a carbon copy until the ninth, with Logan Gilbert taking a comebacker off the ankle in the fourth and giving us seven quality innings anyway. Then Minnesota pulls an outfielder for a fifth infielder, Royce Lewis tags first before throwing to second and nullifies the force, and Randy scores on a scorched Raleigh grounder. Sunday we build 6-0 behind seven shutout innings from Kirby and a Raleigh three-run shot, and our three highest-leverage arms cough up six runs. Bazardo has the home run bug. Ferrer, who has been so good, gave up a three-run shot. Munoz showed his first crack since June. The offense bailed them out anyway on singles from Naylor and Robles and a Colt Emerson knock through the right side, with Naylor belly-flopping into third and face-planting on his own helmet on the way. Back-to-back walk-offs, same as last year against these guys.

Two moves, both the ones we needed. Castillo and the thirty million left on his deal go to the White Sox for Seranthony Dominguez, spelled with an E, plus Nolan Jones and Boston Smith, Chicago's number ten prospect. Dominguez is the guy who served up the Eugenio Suarez grand slam in the playoffs last year, so his last memory of this building is a good one for us. Then Taylor Ward from Baltimore for Alex Hoppe, Brock Moore and Harrison Kreiling. The forty-homer power is gone, but he leads the AL in walks and hits .269 against lefties, which is the exact allergy we've had all year. We're now the only team with two guys sitting in the .300s in on-base. Arozarena stayed, Kirby stayed, Hancock stayed, and San Diego wanted Kade Anderson for Mason Miller. Hard no.

Skubal to the Dodgers was inevitable, and the part that stings is there was no fight for him. They just took him. A billion two in deferred money, a luxury tax bill bigger than sixteen teams' payrolls, and Blake Snell working as a depth piece. Give us a cap and a floor and the same money still gets spent, just not all in one zip code.

Elsewhere: Houston grabbed Varsho, the Cubs stacked Gausman, Clay Holmes and Braxton Garrett, Baltimore sold everything, the Mets and Giants held fire sales, and Boston walked away with Adley Rutschman and a real catching tandem. That's the deadline winner.

Six games left on this homestand, three against a Tigers team that just dismantled its own rotation and three against the Rays for the fiftieth season celebration.