‘It’s a failure’: Seattle Mariners feel the deep pain of disappointment after narrowly missing out on first World Series
By George Ramsay, CNN
(CNN) — For the Seattle Mariners, the wait goes on.
One game away from reaching a first World Series in franchise history, Seattle fell heartbreakingly short in Monday’s 4-3 defeat against the Toronto Blue Jays.
The gut-wrenching loss ensures that the Mariners’ unwanted record as the only team in Major League Baseball never to appear at the Fall Classic remains very much intact.
To see how much this moment pained Seattle and its players, look no further than MVP candidate Cal Raleigh, who was reduced to tears at the end of the game.
“I love every guy in this room, but ultimately, it’s not what we wanted,” Raleigh told reporters after the game. “I hate to use the word failure, but 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 far from alone in his pain. “We’ve put in so much work and effort through this whole year and it’s over,” said Seattle center fielder Julio Rodríguez. “That’s also part of the game too.”
The disappointment is also felt strongly among the team’s supporters.
“As someone who’s a Seattle transplant, I don’t quite have the decades of embedded angst that some locals may carry with them,” Mariners fan Gabe Guarente, 48, told CNN Sports. “But I do sort of share their fatalistic view of the team. We don’t really expect good things to happen, so when they do, it’s more of a pleasant surprise.
“That’s why this year’s ALCS Game 7 loss felt both inevitable and completely heartbreaking at the same time.”
Guarente described his emotions after the defeat as “gloomy … with an undercurrent of simmering rage at the cruel baseball gods.”
On several occasions during this year’s American League Championship Series (ALCS), the signs looked so promising for the Mariners. They jumped into a 2-0 series lead, then went 3-2 up after victory in Game 5.
And in the winner-takes-all game at Toronto’s Rodgers Centre, Seattle went 3-1 ahead when Raleigh launched his fifth home run of the postseason and fourth against the Blue Jays, putting his team in control of the contest at the top of the fifth.
That, however, would be the high point of a miserable night for the Mariners. George Springer’s three-run homer saw Toronto move ahead in the seventh inning, and with that, Seattle’s hopes evaporated.
Having never in their 49-season history been so close to appearing at the World Series, right now, it might feel like the Mariners have never been further away.
“It’s crazy because, at the beginning of September, we weren’t even in the playoff running,” Mariners fan and podcast host Hayley told CNN affiliate KING 5 Seattle. “So to go this far, I think it’s really hard right now. But for every fan, it showed what we could do.”
In time, they will be able to reflect on the team’s successful year, 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 team, hitting an MLB-leading 60 home runs in the regular season, only the seventh player in history to reach that mark.
He signed a reported six-year, $105 million contract extension back in March, while Rodríguez is also locked into a long-term contract through 2029.
For the Mariners – just the fourth team to lead a best-of-seven series 2-0 in the postseason and not advance – the ambition of reaching a first-ever World Series is still there, even in the post-mortem 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,” said manager Dan Wilson. “Once you get that, that’s what you’re shooting for the next year and I know that will continue to be the goal … to get to that final step.
“This year, we were one game short.”
Fans like Guarente are cautiously optimistic about the future, given the talent and age profile of the Seattle team.
“If they invest even a little bit in free agency, I think they can get back in this position,” he said. “It helps that the AL West is not a juggernaut, and the Astros’ empire is on the decline.
“So, yes, I do think the Mariners can reach the World Series in the near future. They’ll have to get more of that Humpy The Salmon magic back, though.”
The-CNN-Wire
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CNN’s Kevin Dotson contributed to reporting.
