On October 21, The Seattle Mariners were eliminated from the postseason, one win away from the first World Series appearance in franchise history. With this loss, they remain the only team in the MLB to have never made it.

Seattle’s 3-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays came in game seven of a best-of-seven series that they had taken an early 2-0 lead in. Their postseason run, which seemed poised to finally make it to the World Series, was driven by possibly the most complete Mariner lineup of all time. Six All-Stars headlined the team in­: Andrés Muñoz, Bryan Woo, Eugenio Suárez, Julio Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena, and MVP candidate Cal Raleigh.

The 2025 season looked like most previous ones by July. The Seattle Mariners seemed just good enough to be in the running for the playoffs, but not quite good enough to actually make it. The turning point for Seattle came towards the end of July, when the front office traded for two of the league’s most desired sluggers: Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor. While they started their stints in Seattle with a poor August, they brought great production in September, leading to a miraculous streak where the Mariners won 17 out of 18 games to clinch the division title and kick the rival Houston Astros out of postseason contention.

For many fans, this season’s unparalleled success has been clouded by the devastation of losing game seven. Steve Baron, a former catcher for Seattle, notes that the debate of the season being a success vs. a failure isn’t exactly black and white. “If you are the Mariners, you will probably see some of it as a failure,” Baron says, adding that “It can feel like both depending on the scale that you look at it.” Baron, who was drafted by Seattle in 2009, also saw a lot of upside in the 2025 Mariners team. “If you have a good middle of the lineup, guys who can drive in runs, you’re gonna win ballgames. The Mariners had that, which to me, is a huge strength.” As far as weaknesses, this year’s Mariners were plagued by something that they have been repeatedly criticized for: Strikeouts. The Mariners struck out 1446 times this year, landing them in the top ten for strikeouts in six out of the last seven seasons. They also struck out nearly twice as much as the Blue Jays in the ALCS, which proved to be critical to the loss. “You need to surround the guys that can drive the ball [but strike out] with more guys who can hit for contact,” Baron noted.

Chris Moedritzer, Garfield Baseball’s head coach for the last 15 years, has been a Mariners fan his whole life. When asked how he saw the season, Moedritzer said, “It’s definitely a success. More than one team gets to say they succeeded, and the Mariners got to play through October.” He continued on to highlight how the season shows the Mariners’ bright future with their relatively young core of players in Rodríguez, Raleigh, and Woo. “In the big picture, you can look at the next few years and think, look how far we got now.”