The Mariners’ Marathon Loss Marks the Start of a New Era

Seattle’s first home MLB playoff game in 21 years brought together a city starved for baseball success—one that still has reason for hope despite the Mariners’ elimination.

SEATTLE — The revelers, those starved, curious and resilient creatures known as longtime Mariners baseball fans, packed Occidental Avenue on Saturday morning, two hours before first pitch. They carried exceedingly optimistic “World Series” signs, shouted “God hates the Astros,” and jammed into every inch of every store for blocks, all while balancing rally shoes atop their heads. They wore Ken Griffey Jr. jerseys, Big Dumper T-shirts and rare expressions—Joy? Excitement?—across their faces.

They didn’t care about things like logic, reason, elite opposition or tortured franchise history. Didn’t care that the Astros, their hated rivals, held a 2–0 lead in their division series. Didn’t care that Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez had rendered 18 taut, tactical, fairly even playoff innings little more than a painful learning experience. His moonshots in Games 1 and 2 reminded Seattle of the gap that remained—between the Mariners and the Astros, yes, but also between the M’s immense promise and the future World Series title they envision.

Still, this marked a fall weekend when local sports fans clogged the traffic-less street that runs the length of Lumen Field, home of the NFL’s Seahawks and their roaring crowds. Except that, on this particular fall weekend, those fans weren’t heading into Lumen. They were streaming past it—and right toward the first postseason baseball game held in these parts in 21 long, fraught, wait-until-next years.

Nothing could dim their sanguinity, an optimism borne from two decades of enduring bad luck, bad seasons and, worse yet, the occasional year that sprinkled promise on their cornflakes only to knock cereal bowls right out of their hands. These revelers seemed to grasp the significance, the possibility, however slim, that the Mariners could right this season once more, at home, against the team they disdain but wouldn’t mind becoming, if that meant five American League West titles and three World Series appearances in the last six seasons. Not to mention their larger aim—closer than ever, nowhere near certain—that, after ending the longest playoff drought in professional sports, they can, they will, not simply advance to but win their first championship.

Even then, for fans who had waited longer than any fans in professional sports for this precise moment, no one packed onto that street, eating hot dogs and marching toward T-Mobile Park, knew just how long the afternoon would extend.

Félix Hernández would throw out the first pitch.

The Mariners and Astros would play 17 innings of scoreless baseball that somehow managed to entrance a sellout crowd. They would tie three other games for the longest-ever in an MLB postseason, based on innings, a full 18.

Afternoon would give way to evening.

Light would become dark.

A few hours would become six hours and 22 minutes.

Only two things didn’t change. The Mariners played the Astros to a near standstill. It wouldn’t be enough. But those stands, the ones packed with the revelers, remained full to the bitter-and-hopeful end.

As lines grew longer and crowds grew thicker and smoke from the fires across the mountains turned downtown into a haze, an elementary school teacher from Snoqualmie parked his white Chevy Traverse in a lot down the street from the ballpark. He happily paid the $80 upcharge because he needed to be inside T-Mobile Park, because he grew up rooting for the Mariners, because his kids (ages 8 and 5) had never known a playoff baseball team and because a video he expected his friends might like had somehow been viewed over 1.2 million times this week.

The teacher, Tim Rooney, had waited a long time for this afternoon. He rooted for Félix Hernández, Robinson Canó and Kyle Seager. He tuned in when there was no reason to watch. And, when the Mariners clashed with the Blue Jays in their first playoff series since 2001, he turned the projection screen in his classroom to the game and doled out his DISH Network password to other teachers. Rooney tends to do that every March, for the NCAA tournament. But he had never considered extending the tradition to the local baseball team, because he couldn’t consider what wasn’t possible. The kids seemed to love Cal Raleigh, the Mariners catcher and franchise hero who ended the drought with an iconic walk-off home run two weeks ago. They seemed to love Raleigh’s nickname, The Big Dumper, in particular.

Who didn’t? Raleigh is known in Seattle’s clubhouse as a smasher of long-distance dingers and an owner of a fairly large posterior, and the combination of both prompted teammate Jarred Kelenic to combine bombs with butt size to bestow the best nickname in sports. Even the father of the Mariners general manager, Jerry Dipoto—his dad is also Jerry—desperately wanted a Big Dumper T-shirt. Clutch Cal, as others called the M’s backstop, would also spark a come-from-behind, series-clinching win with three hits against the Blue Jays. In franchise history, only one other player had reached base at least five times and hit at least one homer in their first two postseason games. Junior, they called him.

Anyway, in the teacher’s video, which he posted on Twitter after Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times told him that he must, Raleigh and his nickname led Rooney’s fifth graders to spontaneously combust on Oct. 7. Viewers could hear him laughing as chants and cheers and pure elation broke out. Big Dump-er! Big Dump-er! He added “Big Dumper energy” to his Tweet, hit post and went back to the game, at least until his phone buzzed, and then buzzed again and then buzzed a few thousand more times. He could hardly believe what was unfolding—well-known baseball chroniclers, popular websites, local radio hosts; everyone was sharing this small slice of what it felt like to be a Mariners baseball fan in October 2022. Rooney checked his phone so often in the ensuing days that his wife, Jenna, fairly chastised him for being distracted at a family photo shoot.

Still, he refused to lean into the video in procuring free tickets. He bought three, way up in the nosebleeds, then found a fourth nearby so everyone in his immediate family could attend. He paid around $200. He dragged his tired 8-year-old, Jameson, to the car. He laughed along with 5-year-old Lincoln, who pointed out his incessant pacing. And he wondered whether George Kirby, the Mariners rookie starting pitcher, could deliver him—along with every Mariners fan alive, including the family of a late and beloved broadcaster—what they all had dreamt of for longer than any cared to admit.

Speaking of Kirby, and the Mariners bountiful future, the club’s decision to start him in the first home playoff game in 21 seasons spoke more loudly than the raucous din on Saturday at T-Mobile Park. Seattle had turned to Kirby late in Game 2 against Toronto, and Kirby had become the first rookie in MLB history to record a save in his first professional appearance in relief.

This wasn’t a particularly difficult decision. Kirby is one of the best young pitchers in baseball. He stands 6’4”, throws hard and relies on breathing techniques to maintain his steady bearing. The combination of all three has led to remarkable consistency. Kirby is a fastball specialist, in a league where fastball specialists are neither endangered nor as prominent as they once were. In 2007 and ‘08, major league pitchers hurled fastballs more than 60% of the time. In ‘22, that number dropped to 49.1%. But not for Kirby, whose percentage landed at 58.

“George is about as calm and adjusted and unflappable as it’s gonna get,” Dipoto said last week, after Kirby’s relief appearance.

“It’s not like he’s gonna let the moment move too fast for him,” Dipoto added. “If you’re looking for a trait in a guy who’s about to pitch the biggest inning you’re gonna play all year long, that’s it. His heart probably wasn’t pumping any faster than normal.” That thought process, everyone hoped, extended to the biggest home start in two decades.

While Kirby warmed up at T-Mobile, Andy Niehaus settled in front of a television on a couch at his nearby home. His father, the late broadcaster Dave Niehaus, might be the most beloved figure in franchise history, which says something about dad, of course, but also something about that history. Andy had seen the petition that was circulating on social media, gathering thousands of signatures from die-hards who wanted club officials to turn around the statue of Dave Niehaus so that it faced the field.

Andy mentioned this to his mother, Marilyn. “That’s stupid,” she laughed. “Why don’t they just put up a mirror.” Andy also mentioned it to someone who worked for the team, who informed him that “literal nuts and bolts” would be an issue.

Like every Mariners fan who grew up listening to his father’s distinct voice and signature calls—19 long years of frustration is over! Dave famously boomed in 1995—Andy felt pride, longing and a touch of sadness that the statue would serve as the only possible stand-in. Dave would have loved this team, its personality and all its Big Dumper-type bombast.

“He would have so enjoyed all this,” Andy said, wistfully, in a phone call this week. “I mean, just getting into the postseason isn’t that big of a big deal. But to us, obviously, it’s gigantic.”

Still, for as exciting as it was to host a postseason game, Andy decided to watch the game at home. He let his children take the family tickets to Game 3 because he wanted them to experience the Mariners as he had, all those years ago.

They went with Marilyn, who had concocted a perfect plan. When she arrived at the ballpark early on Saturday, she carried with her a teal REFUSE TO LOSE sign, a small purse and a pink mirror. She then went to her husband’s statue, taped the mirror to his left hand so it pointed toward the outfield and snapped pictures. She hoped it would bring everyone who knew Dave Niehaus luck.

Believe it: the Mariners hosted a playoff game on Saturday for the first time since George W. Bush was president. On Oct. 18, the same day that Micheline Ostermeyer, a notable French artist and musician died, and crude oil fell to its lowest price in three years, the M’s hosted the Yankees. They lost, 3-2, to fall behind 2-0 in the ALCS. That game might be best remembered for what happened afterward, when then-manager Lou Piniella blew a gasket and promised that Seattle would head to New York and win the series. They did not.

Now, after ending the streak that had long plagued them, the Mariners passed along the title they never wanted in the first place. The longest postseason drought in professional U.S. sports now belongs to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

Hernández received a standing ovation for throwing out the first pitch, but perhaps his mere presence served as a heartwarming but unfortunate omen. After all, the Mariners never seemed to score when he took the mound.

Kirby threw even more fastballs than normal, deploying 66 of his 92 pitches as four-seamers or sinkers. He allowed a mere six hits to the mighty Astros lineup over seven innings, while the 47,690 wary baseball souls in attendance wondered how good he could be in future seasons.

The most promising glimpse that Kirby gave them came against Astros second baseman Jose Altuve. Mariners manager Scott Servais left Kirby in for Altuve’s fourth at bat, even with talented flamethrower Andrés Muñoz warming in the bullpen and a runner already on base. The hurler who favors fastballs threw his fastest (97.8 mph) on the game’s fifth pitch. He threw his second-fastest (97.7) to strike out Altuve and keep the Mariners alive.

It feels like that sequence happened a few years ago. The game continued. And continued. And continued. Kirby and his what-pressure outing dropped from headline-worthy to mere afterthought.

The fan next to Rooney asked for his profession. Teacher, Rooney said.

“You wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Rooney?” the fan asked.

“Yep, I am!”

In the bottom of the seventh, Mariners DH Carlos Santana sailed a shot toward deep right field. False alarm. Flyout.

In the top of the eighth, Muñoz blew a fastball by Kyle Tucker to ensure a runner at second wouldn’t score. As Muñoz stalked toward the dugout, inning over, he pumped his fist, while the crowd stood and waved their rally towels and figured the end was near. It was not. Not near. Not anywhere close. But the ballpark was physically vibrating.

In the bottom of the same inning, Mariners star center fielder Julio Rodríguez sent a bullet off the wall in left-center and slid into second for a double, inches from the tag. That marked only the second time Seattle had put a runner in scoring position. Didn’t matter. Same result.

On and on—and on and on and on and on—it went.

This is a f---ing battle, the teacher sent over a text message. Every. F---ing. Pitch.

The Astros put two runners on in the ninth and didn’t score. Eugenio Suárez hit his way on in the bottom of the same inning, was replaced by a pinch runner—a Servais choice that proved disastrous, in hindsight—and the Mariners didn’t score there, either. Ty France cracked a deep drive to center in the 11th but it died well before the warning track.

“This is ludicrous,” Andy Niehaus wrote in a text message. “And it’s baseball and I love it.”

Rodríguez walked in the 13th inning and stole second. Still, he didn’t score, as Rooney’s older son stopped complaining in order to take his second nap of the day. Young Jameson might have missed Rodríguez making a spectacular diving catch in the 16th. The Astros didn’t score there, either. The two teams, in fact, eventually registered 40 strikeouts between them—the most ever in one playoff game.

No, not until this game tied the three longest postseason affairs in MLB history did anyone on either team actually score. Macklemore took the microphone in a suite above the field to hype up a crowd that hadn’t left. And then, after all of that, after two decades with no playoffs, after six hours and what seemed like 60 million punchouts, the Astros young shortstop Jeremy Peña launched a pitch out of the park.

In the home half of the inning, the Mariners once again, for the 18th time, failed to score. But the revelers still did not leave the park disheartened, which spoke to this team, its season and what both portend for the future of this baseball team.

Half an hour after the 18th inning marked the end of the Mariners’ 2022 season, the players sat quietly inside their clubhouse. There were long hugs, big sighs and promises made for next year. But rather than devastation, what this Seattle baseball team, the one that broke the drought, projected was a quiet confidence. Talent alone won’t bring them back next year. Nor will close, in the playoffs, be good enough. “We showed them who we are,” Rodríguez said at his locker. “We’re gonna be in a better spot next year.”

Someone asked if he would wake up tired Sunday. “I’m 21 years old,” he said, laughing. “I should probably be good.”

When Sports Illustrated interviewed Dipoto in 2021, he could hardly contain his optimism—over what they were building, the players they had, how everything had started to connect in the way he had hoped when they embarked on that rebuild in late 2018.

This season, 2022, is the start of what he envisioned, the core of a championship culture he believes will, eventually, one day, some year soon, become a championship team. On a phone call last week, he mentioned the Mariners traveling party, wives and girlfriends and children who traveled to Houston on the team’s dime, in order to experience all this together.

The team chartered a second plane to fly the group to Texas. Upon landing before Game 1, manager Scott Servais spoke to everyone, telling them how proud he was of the players, this season, their run and everything that everyone had funneled into it. Dipoto spoke next. “This is my favorite team I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. “That’s 33 different teams,” he added, meaning 33 seasons. “This one has personality. It has character. It has work ethic, resiliency. And, in so many ways, this is what we dreamed of where we would ultimately arrive. We have watched it happen in real time.”

These Mariners showed all of baseball they are resilient. They showed locals that they could sign a star like Rodríguez, a face-of-baseball candidate, to a contract that could keep him in Seattle his entire career. They showed off an elite young core who will be together for years—Rodríguez, Kirby, Muñoz, The Big Dumper, ace Luis Castillo, young hurler Logan Gilbert—and have other talented pieces like Suárez and France locked in for the next few seasons.

All of which points to the same place. For a franchise that first played in 1977 and had played in 34 postseason contests before this season, the playoff berths that once seemed so elusive should now become routine.

There is momentum to be seized. Local TV ratings for the Blue Jays series were higher than at point since Game 7 of the World Series in 2019. On social media, the Mariners ranked first in average engagement rate on Twitter from Sept. 29 to Oct. 9. They drew large crowds to T-Mobile even when they played in Houston, simply to watch on the big screen.

Baby steps, Andy Niehaus says. Like last year, they banged on the window pane of promise. And this year, they kicked the window in.

Before the first pitch of Game 1 against the Astros, Dipoto told SI something that rang true later the same week, after zero victories against their rival but three games that proved they belonged. “We’re going to finish it together,” he said. “And there’s not a single guy down there—player, staff, or otherwise—that doesn’t feel like we will win the World Series. Whether it’s this year, next year, or otherwise, this team will do that.”

Just wait until next year didn’t feel quite the same at that moment. The Mariners must reload, must find more offense, must jigger the same chemistry that broke their miserable drought this season. But this time, on this day, as the fans chanted “Let’s Go Mariners!” after they had lost, the familiar refrain didn’t ring delusional. It rang true.

More MLB Coverage:
• ‘It Feels Like Failure’: The Braves’ Promising Season Is Over
• Guardians Win Kids Game, Put Yankees on Brink of Elimination
• The Late Poetics of Freddie Freeman
• Astro in Exile: Jeff Luhnow’s Next Act