It felt impossible, after fine margins decided the first two games of their ALDS, that the Seattle Mariners would be capable of winning a game comfortably, and yet here we are. They weathered Tarik Skubal while in Seattle, traveled to Detroit for a game that got just weird enough—thanks to a rain delay that pushed the start time back three hours and the channel to FS2—and won Tuesday’s Game 3, 8-4 at that.
There’s a temptation to hedge, or find some new totemic representation of what is making this team win in the playoffs, or to try very, very hard not to jinx anything. But for all the Etsy witches hard at work in their labs, perhaps the most magical sensation in the world is the Mariners winning not because of charming, random bullshit, but because the team is legitimately performing well. Expecting offensive listlessness from this team is now dated—per park-adjusted hitting stats, the Mariners were the third-best offense in baseball this year—and just being able to write out that sentence evokes a “Can’t believe this is my life” sentiment. Watch three home runs off of three separate Tigers pitchers, and, yeah, October is truly for the big boys.
