How the Mariners blew a 10-game AL West lead and fell out of playoff position with six weeks left to go

SportsLine currently gives Seattle just a 20.9% chance of making the postseason

By Dayn Perry Aug 19, 2024 at 12:05 pm ET• 4 min read

If you'd told the Seattle Mariners and their partisans coming into the 2024 season that the reigning-champion Texas Rangers would be on pace for 88 losses with September looming and that the Houston Astros – baseball's modern dynasty – would start the year 12-24, assumptions of champagne likely would've followed. 

Matters, though, haven't unfolded in line with those expectations. Going into Monday's slate of contests, the Mariners are in second place in the American League West and four games behind the surging Astros. As well, they're 5 1/2 games out of the third and final wild-card spot in the AL and behind two teams – the Kansas City Royals and Boston Red Sox – in that particular chase. Summing up those current straits, SportsLine at present gives the Mariners just a 20.9% chance of making the postseason. Those are hardly insurmountable odds, but the strong likelihood is that Seattle will be at home in October for a second straight year. 

It didn't always look this way. As recently as June 18, the M's were a season-best 13 games over .500. The Mariners on that same day were in first place by a robust margin of 10 games. Overall this season, they've spent 107 days in first place. For more than a week, though, they've been chasing the leveled-up Astros, and the deficit has been growing of late. Those likely assumptions noted above have turned into fears that Seattle will miss the postseason for a second straight year. As well, the team is on pace for its lowest full-season winning percentage since 2019. 

So what's happened to those once-bright fortunes in Seattle? Their current predicament, in broad terms, is the result of three factors.