M's players make statement of their own after trade deadline

SEATTLE — It's funny how quickly things can change in baseball.

As the trade deadline approached for Aug. 1, the Mariners found themselves playing their best baseball of the season. They were winners of three straight series and counting with the team's highest winning percentage since they were 1-0.

With that, they are just 3.5 games out of the playoffs, contenders if they ever were and "trending in the right direction," as President Jerry Dipoto put it on Tuesday.

So as the team dealt closer Paul Sewald, currently one of the best closers in baseball, some saw it as a sell move even with the promise of young players like Dominic Canzone, Josh Rojas and Ryan Bliss coming back to Seattle.

If it was at all a sell move — Dipoto said it was a move for 2023 and 2024— the Mariners' players made sure to let the world know. They're still in it, and they're in it to close this thing out with a postseason bid.

The Mariners beat Boston handily 6-2 Monday night with their starting pitching stealing the show and Cal Raleigh making towering statements with not one but two home runs.

One of them went right to the Hit it Here Cafe, much like his playoff-clinching home run in 2022 did. It was symbolic in so many ways.

Often times we look at trades just in the business perspective, the players coming and going. But Sewald was a veteran presence and leader in the clubhouse and his departure hurts without question. The statement the players sent in return was two-fold.

They will keep fighting no matter what and that fight will be enough to make something happen in September.

A tightening wild card and even AL West race is making things interesting, regardless, and the Mariners owning the best record in baseball for the month of July is something, too.

Dipoto admitted had the Mariners gone something more like 2-8 in their last 10 instead of their 7-3 mark then perhaps the team would've done something different at the trade deadline. He said they were buying in on this year as aggressively as possible, but were not overwhelmed by the outside market to make more additional moves.

So the roster is set, a team once floundering feels like it's flourishing. There's no more cloud of the trade deadline and who may come or go.

There is just one thing that matters to this team: making the playoffs for a second straight season.

The win Monday night was just the beginning.