As Season's End Draws Closer, Mariners' Goal Has Begun to Shift

Winners of 10 of their last 12, the Mariners look poised to finally snap their 20-year playoff drought with relative ease this month. But while a postseason berth is more or less in the bag, there's still something the team should be hyper-focused on accomplishing.

It is perfectly understandable to be gun shy about the Mariners making the playoffs. Hell, they haven't made it in 20 years and have seen their playoff hopes die in the final weekend of the season too many times to count. 

As of Wednesday morning, Seattle is an astonishing 18 games above .500 (77-59) and has a 99.5 percent chance to make the playoffs, per FanGraphs. 

The Mariners are currently tied with the Rays for the top wild-card spot, though Tampa Bay holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. Therefore, Seattle must finish with at least one more than the Rays in order to secure the American League's No. 4 seed, which would allow the Mariners to play host for their first postseason series in 20 years next month.

This, however, is not the case with the Orioles and Blue Jays, both of whom the Mariners hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over. Thus, Seattle has even more of a cushion over Baltimore and Toronto than the standings would indicate. 

Essentially, while the wild-card standings page from your preferred outlet will note the Mariners have 1.5-game and five-game leads over the Jays and Orioles, respectively, the tiebreaker expands that margin to 2.5 games and six games. 

Tampa Bay, Toronto and Baltimore all have a gauntlet to run through in their remaining schedules. The Mariners have taken care of the teams they need to so far, putting themselves in a favorable position going down the stretch. 

The focus of fans and many outsiders is simply to "snap the drought." But this Mariners team should be aiming higher, looking to do damage in October rather than making it to the dance and calling it good. The best avenue to doing this is securing the first wild-card spot and playing postseason games at T-Mobile Park. 

The Pacific Northwest has been starving for playoff baseball. With the schedule down the stretch and the way this team is playing, the goal has shifted; bring game one to Seattle.