Wait, there’s more?
The Mariners ended their 21-year postseason drought in dramatic and emotional fashion, as Cal Raleigh’s solo home run in the bottom of the ninth sent Seattle to a 2-1 walk-off win over the Athletics.
Believe it or not, after champagne showers, “let’s party” proclamations and what we can safely assume was a long night for Mariners players, they’ll be back out on the field to face the A’s again on Saturday afternoon.
And while the Mariners are now locked into one of the three American League wild-card spots, they still have six regular-season games to play to decide their positioning and future opponent(s) in the playoffs.
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Entering Saturday, Seattle sits in the second wild card, two games behind the Toronto Blue Jays and half a game up on the Tampa Bay Rays. If the season ended right now, the Mariners would head to Toronto to play a best-of-three series entirely on the road. The third seed, currently the Rays, will face the AL Central-winning Guardians in Cleveland.
That’s why there’s still more to play for over the next five days. The Mariners will only host playoff games in the wild-card round if they are able to pass the Blue Jays for the top wild-card spot.
Regardless of location, the wild-card series will be played Friday, Oct. 7 through Sunday, Oct 9. The third game will only be necessary with a split between the first two.
Even with all this uncertainty, playoff tickets are selling quickly. The Mariners made tickets available to the public on Friday morning and have already sold out the first two games of the wild-card series, the AL Division Series and the first two games of the AL Championship Series.
Limited tickets remain for the other games through the Mariners’ website, but (pricey) tickets can be found already on secondary markets. On SeatGeek, tickets for a potential wild-card Game 1 in Seattle on Oct. 7 start at $194.
And because home games are not guaranteed just yet, ticket purchases will be refunded.
After facing the Athletics for the third time on Sunday, the Mariners host the Tigers for four games across three days, including a doubleheader on Tuesday.
After winning on Friday, the Blue Jays host the Red Sox for two more games this weekend before wrapping up their season with three games in Baltimore against the recently eliminated Orioles. And after beating the Astros on Friday, the Rays are in Houston for two more games and then finish in Boston against the Red Sox.
So, the opportunity for the Mariners to host playoff games at T-Mobile Park is very much there for the taking.