So it was Monday when the Mariners played the Philadelphia Phillies in the final stop of a punishing trip that has taken them from surging to slumping. The voice of Dan Baker, the Phillies\u2019 venerable public address announcer<\/a>, transported Dipoto to old Veterans Stadium in the 1990s, when he was a major-league reliever. He could still hear Baker calling his name and his number, 45.<\/p>\n And that led Dipoto to a memory from 1995, when he lost a game for the New York Mets on the West Coast. The next morning, a call to his hotel room jolted him awake. His roommate, Rico Brogna, answered groggily and told Dipoto to pick up. The caller berated Dipoto for disrespecting his uniform number.<\/p>\n \u201cWho is this?\u201d Dipoto asked, and when the caller said \u201cTug McGraw,\u201d<\/a> Dipoto hung up. Just an angry fan, he thought.<\/p>\n A few years later, Dipoto told the story to McGraw, a pitcher he\u2019d grown up rooting for as a young Mets fan in New Jersey. Actually, said McGraw, who had worn No. 45, it wasn\u2019t some angry fan. It was him!<\/p>\n Dipoto never leapt skyward<\/a> after the last out of the World Series, as McGraw once did in this city. But he\u2019s the only baseball operations president who used to be a major-league closer \u2014 49 career saves<\/a> for Cleveland, the Mets and the Colorado Rockies. That job, it turned out, was ideal training for this career.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hang the slider, move on,\u201d Dipoto said, watching his team from the visiting executive suite in the Hall of Fame Club at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when you hang the slider and they hit the three-run homer, the worst thing you can do is hang on to that slider. It\u2019s too late. It\u2019s out of your hand. So don\u2019t hang on to the trade that went bad. Don\u2019t try to reassess an 8-year-old deal that people want to cut up on social media. Just move on and focus on this day, this team, and what we can do moving forward. That\u2019s kind of how I was as a player, and that\u2019s how I\u2019ve been (since). Don\u2019t turn back.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Mariners turn back, they are the only MLB franchise that doesn\u2019t see a World Series appearance in its past. Since hiring Dipoto in September 2015, they have reached the playoffs just once, as a wild card in 2022.<\/p>\n In the last five seasons, though, only seven teams have won more games than the Mariners. The team reached a crossroads last August, when Dipoto fired manager Scott Servais amid a summer slide and replaced him with Dan Wilson, a genial former catcher in the team\u2019s Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s like (the) Mount Rushmore of good people who care about the people around them,\u201d Dipoto said. \u201cHe just wants to see you succeed, and it\u2019s a great trait. Scott did an awesome job for nine years here. He was, in 2016 when we came on, exactly what we needed: established organization and discipline, and we learned how to play the game the way we wanted to play the game.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then we were just having a tough time busting through that ceiling. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time that a different voice came in and was able to help.\u201d<\/p>\n Jerry Dipoto grabs a pregame moment with Mariners manager Dan Wilson on trade deadline day in July. (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Wednesday will mark Wilson\u2019s 162nd game at the helm, and the Mariners are 89-72, consistent with the team\u2019s recent history. The Mariners have won 90, 90, 88 and 85 games each year since 2021 and stand 68-59, tied with the Boston Red Sox for the last two American League wild-card spots.<\/p>\n As it turns out, the Mariners weren\u2019t falling apart last summer, when they lost a 10-game division lead and missed a wild-card spot by one game. This is who they are, on the edge of something special. A year under Wilson has confirmed it.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s kind of been, in baseball\u2019s way, the productivity of our roster in general for most of the last five years,\u201d Dipoto said. \u201cWe\u2019re kind of hovering around that spot. We\u2019re trying to figure out how to break beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n Corner infielders Josh Naylor and Eugenio Su\u00e1rez \u2014 acquired in separate trades with the Arizona Diamondbacks in late July \u2014 should be part of the solution. The Mariners\u2019 first division title in 24 years seems in their grasp, with the battered Houston Astros fading fast. But they haven\u2019t done it yet.<\/p>\n After a 10-1 stretch that started July 31, the Mariners have lost six of seven games and look exhausted on the final leg of a three-team, four-city, nine-game trip without an off day.<\/p>\n The Mariners have lost all three series \u2014 to the Baltimore Orioles, the Mets (two games in Queens and one in Williamsport, Pa.) and Philadelphia \u2014 but have scored in the seventh inning or later in every game. They tied Tuesday\u2019s score with three runs in the seventh but lost 6-4 when J.T. Realmuto homered off Matt Brash in the eighth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a really good lineup, we\u2019re deep, and we let everybody know that we\u2019re not going to give up the game,\u201d said Su\u00e1rez, who doubled twice Tuesday but is batting .176 since the trade. \u201cNo matter who we face, we\u2019re ready to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mariners still strike out a lot (third in MLB), but after ranking 21st in MLB in runs per game last season, they\u2019re up to 10th now. Catcher Cal Raleigh leads the majors in homers, with 47, and five others have hit at least 15: Randy Arozarena, Julio Rodr\u00edguez, Jorge Polanco, Naylor and Su\u00e1rez.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a team that doesn\u2019t let down easy, and that\u2019s something that all good teams have,\u201d said Wilson, a stalwart of four Seattle playoff teams from 1995 to 2001. \u201cWe\u2019re able to strike and we\u2019re able to strike quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Alas, that is what the Phillies did Monday to Logan Gilbert, who had never before allowed six runs without pitching more than two innings. The Phillies fouled off his best pitches, hammered his mistakes and wound up with 21 hits in the game, the most they\u2019ve had here in 16 years.<\/p>\n Dipoto understood why Wilson removed Gilbert before the top of the third; after nine hits and 65 pitches, it just wasn\u2019t his night. The bullpen wasn\u2019t much better.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is pretty unbelievable \u2014 we\u2019re not a particularly easy team to hit,\u201d Dipoto said, mentioning a string of short starts on this trip, as another Phillie lashed a line drive.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a 162-game season when you\u2019re riding the wave, everybody\u2019s going to have a clunker now and then. When you start backing up three-inning, four-inning starts on top of one another, it does take its toll.\u201d<\/p>\n By the middle innings, Dipoto was conferring with Andy McKay, the assistant general manager, on bullpen coverage for the rest of the series. Sure enough, two relievers were sent to the minors Tuesday, with fresh arms taking their place.<\/p>\n One of them, Bryce Miller, made his first start since early June after dealing with elbow inflammation. It marked the first time this season the Mariners have had their projected starting rotation together, with Gilbert, Luis Castillo, George Kirby and Bryan Woo. All but Miller have been All-Stars within the last three summers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sucks it took this long in the season to get all five (of us) healthy and rolling, but we\u2019ve got to start stringing together good starts and giving us a chance,\u201d said Miller, who allowed four runs in five innings. \u201cWe\u2019ll be all right. We\u2019re still in a good spot. Everything\u2019s going to be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to picture a rotation like Seattle\u2019s \u2014 with a bullpen anchored by Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz \u2014 pitching deep into October. Strong young starters carried the 2010 San Francisco Giants all the way, same as the 2003 Florida Marlins, 1985 Kansas City Royals, 1969 Mets and so on.<\/p>\n Then again, the Oakland Athletics of the early 2000s never got past the division series. Neither did the 2011 Phillies\u2019 stable of aces, nor the 2014 Detroit Tigers\u2019 Cy Young brigade. Study baseball long enough, and precedents bombard you from every direction.<\/p>\n \u201cMy favorite part of baseball history is that what we\u2019re doing, there\u2019s almost nothing you can do that hasn\u2019t been done before, in some weird way,\u201d Dipoto said. \u201cIt\u2019s just trying to carve out a modern way of looking at it and doing it. We\u2019re no better at predicting the future than anybody else is. We\u2019re trying to put a good baseball team on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n The Mariners have done that. They are weary now; this weekend\u2019s home series with the Athletics can\u2019t arrive fast enough. But they are probably the healthiest, most complete team in the division. This should be their time.<\/p>\n Now they just have to pass the Astros, who have held or shared first place for 78 days in a row and now lead Seattle by a game and a half. Dipoto went hours Monday without checking his phone for the Houston score, but it was only a matter of time.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, I will,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you are actually the person in baseball that says, \u2018I don\u2019t look at that,\u2019 most of them are looking at it. It could be a glance at the out-of-town scoreboard, it could be checking the scores when the game\u2019s over, or periodically just popping over to the dot-com scoreboard. So, yeah, I\u2019m watching. We\u2019re all watching.\u201d<\/p>\n The past is the past, as every closer and general manager knows. The present is the pennant race. It\u2019s OK to peek.<\/p>\n (Top photo: Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 Jerry Dipoto once tried to collect the signature of every player in the history of Major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,5162,85],"class_list":["post-83229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2227948778-scaled.jpg\")
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