In my experience as a fan, nothing is more emotionally difficult that having your team eliminated deep in the MLB playoffs. If you get this far into the baseball season -- especially if you reach Game Seven of the LCS -- you have really been through a lot with your team. The Mariners played 174 official games this season. They played 12 playoff games, one of which went 15 innings. In the last game of the season, they had a 3-1 lead at the seventh-inning stretch, and were only nine outs away from their first pennant in history. Even at the end, they still had a chance -- their season ended with Cal Raleigh, their star, the guy who hit 60 regular season home runs, who homered in this game -- on deck. But all three of their batters in the ninth inning struck out, and Raleigh never got another chance.
Now as a fan, there is no getting over this type of loss. It will never stop hurting. Because you were right there. It's not like you had no chance. Every Mariner fan knows, in his or her heart, that their team is just as good as Toronto. But that's not what the record books will show.
I've watched a lot of playoff series in my time, and I have rarely seen one more evenly matched, or where the players seemed to play with more serious effort. There was enormous pressure on both teams, and both of them played well.
Mariner fans will spend the rest of their lives replaying that seventh inning. Should they have left Woo in the game? Should they have brought in someone other than Bazardo? Should they have walked Springer to set up the force at every base? I can still remember watching Tommy Lasorda -- my favorite manager of all time -- leaving in Tom Niedenfuer to pitch to Jack Clark in Game Six of the 1985 N.L.C.S. I knew that Clark would hit the game-winning (and pennant-winning) home run, and he did. I still think Lasorda made a mistake. And it's possible that Seattle manager Dan Wilson -- a man who played 12 seasons for the Mariners, and who wants them to win the pennant more than anyone else -- made a mistake tonight. We will never know.
But it is the genius of baseball that it forces difficult choices on everyone. Tonight Wilson got caught in a basic principle of baseball -- one that Earl Weaver described years ago, in one of my favorite baseball quotes of all time:
"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
So you shouldn't blame the Mariners, or Dan Wilson, or Eduard Bazardo. Give credit to the Blue Jays, who pulled off a miracle comeback and who really deserve the 2025 American League Pennant. Give credit to George Springer, who had his chance -- and who took it.
As for the Mariners' fans, they can always take comfort in another great baseball quote: Wait 'til next year.
Beautiful.
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