Mariners clinch AL West: Seattle holds off Astros, secures division title for first time since 2001

For the first time since Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki’s rookie season, the Seattle Mariners are AL West champions. The Mariners clinched their first division title since 2001 with Wednesday night’s 9-2 win over the Colorado Rockies (box score). Seattle secured a postseason berth Tuesday night. Now they’re division champs.

“We’re not done yet,” MVP candidate Cal Raleigh said after clinching a postseason spot (via MLB.com). “Obviously we’ll enjoy this moment, celebrate. Like I said, we’ve got bigger things on the horizon.”

Seattle’s 23-year division title drought was the fourth-longest active drought in baseball. Only the Rockies and Miami Marlins, neither of whom has won a single division title since joining the league as expansion teams in 1993, and Pittsburgh Pirates had longer droughts. The Pirates last won their division in 1992, their final season with Barry Bonds.

The Mariners have a chance to be a real handful in a short postseason series. Their offense is top five in runs per game since adding Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez at the trade deadline, and once they shrink their pitching staff down to their eight or nine most trusted arms, they’ll have a bat-missing power pitcher on the mound basically every inning.

The ongoing collapse of the Detroit Tigers puts the Mariners is excellent position to secure a Wild Card Series bye. The Tigers fell to second place on Wednesday following their second consecutive loss to the Guardians. Meanwhile, the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees are the only other American League teams to clinch a postseason berth thus far. The Blue Jays and Yankees are tied — for both the AL East and No. 1 seed — after Wednesday’s slate of games.

Beyond skipping an entire round, the bye would also give righty Bryan Woo more team to heal up from his pectoral strain. It is considered a minor injury and he is not on the injured list, but the more time they can give it to calm down, the better. Also, Seattle’s bullpen has worked very hard the last few weeks. The bye would be a welcome rest.

The Mariners are one of five teams without a World Series championship and they are the only team to never appear in a World Series. Seattle joined the league as an expansion team in 1977. This is only their fourth division title (1995, 1997, 2001, 2025).