The Seattle Mariners are once again fighting for a spot in the playoffs in baseball’s final month.

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For the fourth straight season, the M’s find themselves in the thick of the American League playoff hunt in September. They’re 1 1/2 games in front of the Texas Rangers for the final AL wild card berth and just a half-game back of the Houston Astros for first place in the AL West entering their series opener Thursday against the Angels. They’re also 2 1/2 games behind the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for the first and second wild card spots.

With just 16 games left in the regular season, it’s shaping up to an exciting chase over the final 2 1/2 weeks of the season.

FOX MLB play-by-play voice Adam Amin broke down the AL playoff race when he joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Thursday. Amin believes the Yankees and Red Sox will get in, leaving the Mariners, Astros and Rangers fighting for the final two spots.

“I still lean towards Houston and Seattle just in terms of quality play and consistency play,” Amin said. “I still feel like these are the more consistent teams. I think Texas hit a really good hot streak, but I don’t know if they can maintain it the way they did these last couple of weeks for the final 2 1/2 weeks of the season. I feel like the consistency for Houston and Seattle has been there throughout the year, even if there’s been some slides.”

Amin’s opinion is backed up by FanGraphs’ playoff projections, which give the Mariners an 88.7% chance to make the playoffs, the Astros an 82.3% chance and the Rangers a 26.3% chance (projections were prior to Houston losing 6-0 to Toronto on Thursday).

Faith in experience, but M’s are dangerous

When the dust settles and the playoff field is finalized, there’s a very good chance the AL could feature two matchups with division rivals squaring off, with the Mariners facing the Astros in one wild card series and the Red Sox facing the Yankees in the other.

Ultimately, Amin has more faith in the Astros and Yankees to move on due to their postseason experience.

“I feel like the done-it-before factor in this portion of the season just seems to rear its head more often than not in Major League Baseball,” Amin said. “Just the teams that seem like they have a baseline to work off of when unexpected bounces take place in a playoff series. In a two-out-of-three (games series) especially, let alone a three-out-of-five, anything can happen.

“One bounce goes the wrong way, one pitcher has a bad outing, one offense lights it up for one day – all of a sudden you’re looking at a 1-0 series. Stuff like this happens in baseball playoffs, and it’s impossible to predict because of the randomized nature of it when you get from 162 down to best of three, five or seven.”

While Amin has more confidence in the Astros and Yankees to reach the divisional round, he thinks the Mariners are the team he would not want to match up with in October.

“I still feel like if Seattle gets in there, they’re the team that people don’t want to face. Because when you have two or three big bats in the lineup, that’s what really scares teams come playoff time – as long as they’re hot,” Amin said. “That’s obviously the other thing, as long as the bats are hot. And I have confidence in Seattle’s pitching to get through a wild card series.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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