For the Seattle Mariners, the wait goes on.
One sport away from reaching a first World Series in franchise historical past, Seattle fell heartbreakingly quick in Monday’s 4-3 defeat in opposition to the Toronto Blue Jays.
The gut-wrenching loss ensures that the Mariners’ undesirable report as the solely staff in Major League Baseball by no means to look at the Fall Classic stays very a lot intact.
To see how a lot this second pained Seattle and its gamers, look no additional than MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, who was lowered to tears at the finish of the sport.
“I love every guy in this room, but ultimately, it’s not what we wanted,” Raleigh advised reporters after the sport. “I hate to make use of the phrase failure, however it’s a failure.
“That’s what we expected: to get to the World Series and win a World Series. That’s what the bar is and the standard is – that’s what we want to hold ourselves accountable to – but it hurts.”
Raleigh was removed from alone in his pain. “We’ve put in so much work and effort through this whole year and it’s over,” mentioned Seattle middle fielder Julio Rodríguez. “That’s also part of the game too.”
The disappointment can also be felt strongly amongst the staff’s supporters.
“We’re obviously very upset, that was a serious heartbreak,” Mariners fan and podcast host Ari told NCS affiliate KING 5 Seattle.
Her podcast co-host Hayley, additionally a Seattle fan, added: “It’s crazy because, at the beginning of September, we weren’t even in the playoff running. So to go this far, I think it’s really hard right now. But for every fan, it showed what we could do.”
On a number of events throughout this yr’s American League Championship Series (ALCS), the indicators regarded so promising for the Mariners. They jumped into a 2-0 sequence lead, then went 3-2 up after victory in Game 5.
And in the winner-takes-all sport at Toronto’s Rodgers Centre, Seattle went 3-1 forward when Raleigh launched his fifth dwelling run of the postseason and fourth in opposition to the Blue Jays, placing his staff in management of the contest at the high of the fifth.
That, nevertheless, could be the excessive level of a depressing night time for the Mariners. George Springer’s three-run homer noticed Toronto transfer forward in the seventh inning, and with that, Seattle’s hopes evaporated.
Having by no means of their 49-season historical past been so near showing at the World Series, proper now, it would feel like the Mariners have by no means been additional away.
In time, they may have the ability to replicate on the staff’s profitable yr, reaching a first ALCS since 2001 with a thrilling, near-five-hour win over the Detroit Tigers.
The 28-year-old Raleigh has been the heartbeat of this Seattle staff, hitting an MLB-leading 60 dwelling runs in the common season, solely the seventh participant in historical past to succeed in that mark.
He signed a reported six-year, $105 million contract extension again in March, whereas Rodríguez can also be locked into a long-term contract by way of 2029.
For the Mariners – simply the fourth staff to guide a best-of-seven sequence 2-0 in the postseason and never advance – the ambition of reaching a first-ever World Series remains to be there, even in the autopsy of a brutal loss.
“All of us now have had a taste of how close we can get and how good this team can be,” mentioned supervisor Dan Wilson. “Once you get that, that’s what you’re capturing for the subsequent yr and I do know that can proceed to be the objective … to get to that remaining step.
“This year, we were one game short.”