Seattle is the only current Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise without a World Series appearance. The M's entered this season with the longest active playoff drought in the four major North American professional sports leagues, attempting to make their first postseason in twenty years. The Mariners played their 22nd full season (23rd overall) at T-Mobile Park, their home ballpark in Seattle, Washington. The 2021 Seattle Mariners season was the 45th season in franchise history. ( Rick Rizzs, Aaron Goldsmith, Dave Sims) ( Dave Sims, Aaron Goldsmith, Mike Blowers) Listen: Mariners - 710 ESPN / Astros - KBME 790 AM/94.Baseball Club of Seattle, LP, represented by CEO John Stanton Game 3: Wednesday, September 8th 1:10 pm CDT Watch: Mariners - ROOTNW / Astros - ATT SportsNet-SW Game 2: Tuesday, September 7th 7:10 pm CDT Watch: Mariners - ROOTNW / Astros - ATT SportsNet-SW / MLB Network (out-of-market only) Listen: Mariners - 710 ESPN / Astros - KBME 790 AM/94.5 FM HD-2, KLAT 1010 Game 1: Monday, September 6th 6:10 pm CDT He weaved through traffic in his last start against the Astros, giving up 8 hits in 5.1 innings, but left that one with just 2 runs on his ledger. He’s gone at least 5 innings and hasn’t given up more than 3 earned runs in any of those game, giving his team opportunities to win. Game 3: Tyler Anderson (LHP, 6-9, 4.08 ERA, 116 K’s) vs Jose Urquidy (RHP, 6-3, 3.42 ERA, 70 K’s)Īnderson has slotted in nicely for the Mariners since coming over from Pittsburgh at the trade deadline. His only other shutout of significant length this season came against the Yankees, but other than that Gilbert has really not been very good in 2021. Gilbert was absolutely destroyed by the Astros in his first start against them in August, dropping 9 earned runs in 4.2 innings, which he followed up with 5 innings of shutout ball in his next start against them. The second rematch of the series, this one is a similar story to Game 1. After surrendering 7 runs in just 2.2 innings in Houston during mid-August, he went on to shut them out for 7 innings in his most recent start. Kikuchi has had a Jekyll and Hyde season, including his two most recent starts against the Astros. In the first of two pitching rematches from last week, Yusei Kikuchi gets the ball for Seattle in Game 1. The winning formula for opposing teams seems to be getting to the starting pitching early and putting the game out of reach for Seattle before the game is turned over to the pen. On top of that, their bullpen has been on point and is a major reason why the offense has been in the position to win games late. Though they rank near the bottom of the league in most stats, they’ve been able to generate their runs when they most need it, late in games and in last at-bats. Of course, I will reiterate that it’s not the size of the offense but how the M’s are using it this season. Not much has changed for the team, with the same names still providing most of the oomph for the team. Seeing as how I’ve covered this twice in the past few weeks already I’m just gonna cop out and refer you to my previous series preview from when the Astros faced the Mariners last week. W/L Splits: 40-29 at home, 35-33 on the road, 39-36 against teams over. Last 10 Games: 6-4 Record, 1 Series Sweep, 1 Series Win, 1 Series Loss, +6 Run Differential (45 Scored, 39 Allowed) They also play a number of their final games against the Diamondbacks, Angels, and Royals, so the chances of them ending September with a winning record is at least decent. If they’re going to break their epic postseason drought then they’ll need to win most of those games, if not all of them. That places Seattle firmly in charge of their own destiny with this series against the Astros, two more against the A’s, and another against the Red Sox. On top of that, they now sit just 4.5 games back from the Astros after Houston’s disastrous road trip to the West Coast, which included a series loss against these same Mariners. They leap-frogged the A’s after sweeping the Diamondbacks over the weekend to run their winning streak to 5 in a row, and are now just 3 games back from the second WC spot. Still, they do have some work to do if they expect to be playing a month from now. However, a surprisingly strong bullpen and a surgical offense with a propensity for the clutch hit has propelled them into the thick of the October hunt. By rights the young team from Seattle doesn’t really belong in the race considering that they’re supposed to be at the beginning of a rebuild period. For the third time in as many weeks the Astros will face off against the Mariners in what is becoming an increasingly tight postseason race.
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