Mariners clinch American League West title for first time since 2001

Ryan Divish, The Seattle Times on Sep 25, 2025

Published in Baseball

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Season after season, they could only watch as someone else took their turn atop a place that seemed to grow farther away with each passing year.

When the 2001 Mariners ran away with the American League West, clinching their third division title (1995, 1997) on Sept. 19, and rolling to an MLB-record 116 wins, turning then-Safeco Field into the coolest place to be from April until October, damn if it didn’t feel like they would have winning teams forever.

But success in this game can be fleeting. Players age. Opponents improve. Business decisions become more important than baseball moves. Bad baseball moves leave lasting effects. Mediocrity seeps its way into a culture and becomes a resident.

But 24 seasons without winning a division title?

During that time, the Angels stopped saying they were from Anaheim and from Los Angeles while squandering a generational two-way talent. The Astros joined the division and turned trash cans into a metaphor for cheating. The Rangers had two different stadiums and more success than the neighboring Cowboys. The A’s had a movie made about them being cheap, but successful, tried at least four different stadium solutions and then left Oakland for a Triple-A ballpark and a final destination that will supposedly be in Las Vegas. All four of those teams each taking turns as division champs on multiple occasions.

And the Mariners? Well, they sort of listlessly floated in the ether of being relevant and not. They had teams that were good but not great. They had teams that were unwatchably bad. They wanted to win a division again, but were reluctant to commit to what it takes to do so.

Eventually their first true rebuild since their last division title, which started after a winning 2018 season, would start to produce success.

A postseason appearance in 2022 with a series win in the wild card round was the start. Bettering that outcome was more difficult than expected.

With their 9-2 pasting of the Rockies on Wednesday night, a vision that was born in the minds of the front office executives Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander, a goal that was demanded to be the standard by players before them and an accomplishment more than two decades in the making was realized by the 2025 Seattle Mariners.

You can call them: American League West champions.

Standing on the top step of the dugout, Dan Wilson, the quiet stalwart catcher of the 2001 team and the stoic, controlled manager of the 2025 team, beamed as his players after they made the last out.

Roughly 24 hours after celebrating a come-from-behind win over a bad team to earn a spot in the postseason, the Mariners’ two young superstars — Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez — set an early tone of superiority, smashing back-to-back homers in the first inning and turning T-Mobile Park and the crowd of 42,883 into bedlam.

The comfortable early-fall evening turned into a party for everyone with starter Luis Castillo looking dominant and run support piling up via basehits and homers from base hits and homers. Heck, even rookie catcher Harry Ford got to catch the final inning.

It was only fitting that Raleigh, who has become the conscience of the organization and something more than the face of the franchise, add to his unprecedented season on the team’s night of triumph. With fans standing in anticipation, Raleigh followed up is first-inning homer with another solo blast in the eighth inning — giving him 60 homers this season.

He is one of seven players in Major League history to hit 60 homers in a season.

The chants of MVP! MVP! MVP! reverberated from the Pacific Northwest resonating across the country to largely obstinate ears in the Bronx

As they showered each other with beer and Champagne on Tuesday, the Mariners to a man said it was only pre-party and that the real celebration would come after they clinched a division. They knew the history. They’ve heard plenty about the 2001 team. They need only took above the third deck in right field — where Raleigh’s 59th homer landed — to see the banners hanging from the rafters. The AL West champs had three numbers for far too long: 1995, 1997, 2001.

But that isn’t enough for them. The AL West was one goal on course to the top as of the mountain as Wilson said on Tuesday. Their goal is to win the World Series, a sentiment that would’ve seemed laughable in so many years since 2001.

It seems something more than possible with this team that’s anchored by Raleigh, buoyed by Rodriguez, constructed on starting pitching and improved by the additions of Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez. They are a powerhouse built for modern postseason success.

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