FPF: Clinched

Date Line: Seattle, WA. Thursday, September 23rd 2021

The Seattle Mariner are Playoff Bound

On a beautiful and unseasonably warm late September evening, the Seattle Mariners clinched the AL West, thus ending their nineteen year playoff drought. Almost lost in the shower of champagne and Bud Light was yet another quality start by Justus Sheffield, who earned his 17th win on the season by scattering 5 hits and 2 earned run while raking up 7 strikeouts across 6 and 2/3 innings.

Nineteen years of pain - which seemed to reach its nadir in June 2020 with the near complete shuffling of the front office and coaching staff – was eased when Left Fielder Bryce Harper caught the final out of and the Drought was over. Seeing Manger Manny Act – who is almost certainly going to win Manager of the Year – dive on top of the player pile just behind the pitcher’s mound was the cathartic moment many fans have needed for the past two decades.

While GM Justin Hollander deserves credit for assembling a solid bullpen for the 2021 campaign, it is appropriate to credit much-maligned former GM Jerry Depot for the aggressiveness and vision that lead to this result.

Few believed the smooth talking Depot in November of 2018 when he stated a reimagined Mariners roster would open a new competitive window in 2020-2021. But then even fewer believed a resurgent Bryce Harper would become a Seattle Mariner.

The story was instantly the stuff of legend:

A historically slow free agent market.

Rare late February thunderstorms outside of Las Vegas diverting Harpers private jet to Portland, OR, thus delaying Harpers flight to Philadelphia for what was presumed to be his singing ceremony.

Harper languishing in a hotel waiting for the weather to clear, when an ill-timed tweet by the official Twitter account for the Phillies accidently welcomed Manny Machado (who would sign a week later with the Los Angeles Dodgers) to Philadelphia.

The immediate public support from Phillies fan and media at seemingly signing Machado over Harper, angering a stranded and now lonely Harper.

A frantic call from Seattle native Marco Gonzales to bench coach Manny Acta; quiet approval from Dipoto on a harebrained scheme, and a now legendary road trip down the I-90 by Seattle future #1 starter and field manager.

A long dinner conversation with a less lonely Harper about making baseball fun; a next day tour of T-Mobile Park.

A stunned John Stanton agreeing to offer the largest contract in baseball history.

Scott Boras and Dipoto hanging a jersey on a new Mariner for the second time in two months.

A normally stoic Ryan Divish caught smiling at the presser.

A rebuild many envisioned to take multiple years was shortened to two seasons when forty two years of organizational misfortune and back luck regressed to mean during those crazy 96 hours in February 2019.

Dipoto and most of his staff are gone now, but Bryce Harper is a Mariner for the next eight years (Unless he opts out in 2023).

And the Mariners are in the playoffs, with a week to prepare to host the winners of the Wild Card play in.

There is finally joy in Mudville.