With less than two weeks left in the 2025 regular season, the Seattle Mariners, at least for the moment, find themselves atop the American League West standings. Here's a look at those standings going into Tuesday's full slate of games:
Obviously, that's not a comfortable lead over Houston, but it does hint at the fairly swift reversal of fortunes in Seattle. Mere days ago, the M's were four games out of first place and caught in a stretch that would see them lose 15 of 21 games. At present, though, Seattle is riding a nine-game winning streak that's has the team back in sole possession of first place for the first time since the first day of June. If they're able to hang on, it'll be the club's first division title since 2001, when they won a record 116 games. On that front, SportsLine right now gives the Mariners a 72.2% chance of hanging on and winning the AL West.
So how has Seattle flipped this particular script? There's only so much we can say about such a span of games, but here's a brief rundown of what's gone right for Seattle lately.
First and foremost, it's been an accommodating stretch of schedule. Their nine straight wins have come against the Braves, Cardinals, and Angels -- three teams that this season are a combined 33 games under .500 with a combined run differential of minus-226. While that stretch includes a pair of walk-off wins in extra innings, it's otherwise been an exercise in dominance for Seattle. Since the streak began, the Mariners have scored an MLB-leading 66 runs and allowed just 23 -- the third fewest in MLB over that span. Framed another way, in a span of just nine days, the Mariners improved their 2025 run differential from plus-8 to plus-43.
This, though, is what good teams are supposed to do. Even the best teams tend to put up fairly middling records against other winning clubs. Often, it's how you fare against teams you should beat that determines your fate in the standings. In the case of the 2025 Mariners, they're presently just .500 against winning teams but 40-26 against teams that are .500 or worse. High-level mathematics will reveal that the heavy lifting behind that mark has been done during this ongoing win streak.
Cal Raleigh is of course the leading light for the M's and in the mix for AL MVP laurels. He's a skilled defensive catcher who leads the majors in home runs (a whopping 54 of them and counting). Of late, though, Julio Rodríguez has been powering the Mariners.
Rodríguez always lays a foundation of value with his elite defense in center field, plus value on the bases, and general durability. His offense, though, has ranged from excellent to "merely" quite good across his standout career. Recent days and weeks have seen Rodríguez at his best at the plate. Consider:
That sustained surge on the part of the three-time All-Star who's still just 24 years of age has been essential to the Seattle cause. That's especially the case once you consider that Raleigh has inevitably come back to earth a bit in the second half and how gravely marquee deadline addition Eugenio Suárez has struggled since the trade to Seattle.
Seattle's most competitive division rivals have of course played a hand in all of this. In the Astros' case, they're narrowly below .500 since the start of July. Meanwhile, Texas has enjoyed a surge up the standings in recent weeks, but they had a losing record at the break to overcome. The undeniable reality in the AL West is that injuries have hit the two Lone Star State teams much harder than they've hit the first-place Mariners. The Rangers, for instance, are presently making do without an array of core contributors; Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Evan Carter, Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Tyler Mahle, and others are all on the injured list. As for Houston, Isaac Paredes, Josh Hader, Luis Garcia, and Ronel Blanco number among their injured, and Yordan Alvarez may soon join them. This isn't to dismiss Seattle's accomplishments, as health at some level is a skill. However, there's no question that the Astros and Rangers have been greatly compromised by injuries this season.
Looking forward, it all may come down to Seattle's road series with the Astros that starts on Friday. That three-game set will determine who wins the tiebreaker between the two teams -- the season series is tied at 5-5 -- and it also will of course have great bearing on the AL West standings outside of tiebreaker scenarios. The two clubs figure to enter that crucial series in very different states, both in terms of health and recent on-field outcomes. Baseball, though, is a hairpin-turn of a sport, and the trends hold until the moment they don't. For now, the trends favor Seattle.