{"id":38162,"date":"2025-05-19T06:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T06:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/38162\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T06:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T06:50:11","slug":"seattle-mariners-sitting-pretty-in-postseason-race-after-strong-first-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/38162\/","title":{"rendered":"Seattle Mariners Sitting Pretty in Postseason Race After Strong First Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the last two weeks have not been ideal, the Seattle Mariners&#8217; entire performance over the first quarter of the season has the team well positioned for an extended playoff push this year.<\/p>\n<p>The Mariners enter Friday with a 23-19 record, leading the American League West, ranking fifth in the American League, and 11th in MLB. With how weak the American League is this year, it is a <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/seattle-mariners-looking-9th-straight-211240795.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:strong foundation;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">strong foundation<\/a> to build on with the remaining 120 games of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Seattle last made the postseason in 2022, with their most recent trip before that one coming in 2001. They have famously never won a playoff series in their 49-year existence, but the M&#8217;s have a strong chance of changing that this year.<\/p>\n<p>A recent article from Kerry Miller of <a href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25195618-ranking-each-mlb-teams-playoff-chances-2025-seasons-quarter-mark\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bleacher Report;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Bleacher Report<\/a> took a look at the playoff chances of all 30 teams through the first quarter of the season and ranked them from most to least likely. The M&#8217;s are sitting pretty with their 87.2% chance, and Miller ranked them sixth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Seattle feels a bit high as the third-most likely playoff team out of the American League,&#8221; Miller wrote, &#8220;but perhaps that&#8217;s just the nagging memory of the M&#8217;s blowing what was a 10-game lead in the AL West in mid-June of last season. They&#8217;re hitting much better than last year, even with Julio Rodr\u00edguez&#8217;s OPS continuing to hover in the .700 range. And even with George Kirby yet to make his 2025 debut, they&#8217;ve managed to more than tread water and should be in excellent shape when both he and Logan Gilbert return, hopefully by the end of the month.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Rodriguez&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/latest-performance-mariners-star-set-181905761.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:offensive struggles;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">offensive struggles<\/a> throughout his career have certainly been an issue, but he still provides strong defense in the outfield and can turn the power on at any given moment.<\/p>\n<p>The first quarter of the season has come and gone, and &#8220;only&#8221; 120 games remain. The base has been poured, and now it is time for Seattle to build on their strong start to the year in its push for the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the last two weeks have not been ideal, the Seattle Mariners&#8217; entire performance over the first quarter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[152,3236,5,465,3992,2601,466,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,65,13256],"class_list":{"0":"post-38162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-american-league","9":"tag-american-league-west","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-george-kirby","12":"tag-julio-rodriguez","13":"tag-kerry-miller","14":"tag-logan-gilbert","15":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","16":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-mlb-playoffs","19":"tag-mlb-postseason","20":"tag-seattle-mariners","21":"tag-strong-foundation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114533172704673062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}