If you are a MLB team, you’ll have fallow stretches. Let’s consider the 2025 season:
The World Series winning Los Angeles Dodgers went 10-14 in the month of July, but still secured their division with a 93-69 record en route to MLB’s first repeat title winner in 25 years.
April 10-May 7 saw the Toronto Blue Jays go 8-15, en route to a 94-68 record, the AL East crown, and American League Pennant.
From June 30-August 5, the 94-68 New York Yankees went 12-19, a .387 win percentage.
MLB’s best regular season club, the Milwaukee Brewers, were 97-65 overall but went 8-14 from April 23-May 17th.
Twice, the 96-66 Philadelphia Phillies fell 5.0 games back in the NL West in a year they’d wear its crown by 13 games. The first time came after a five-game losing streak including a sweep at the hands of the Mets, part of a 5-10 stretch from April 10-25th. The second was more dire, a 2-10 run from May 29th thru June 10th which saw them swept by the Brewers and their intrastate competitors in Pittsburgh. They dropped 7.0 games from their original standing in the divisional race in under two weeks.
If that final stretch scratched a particular itch for you, it may be its rhyme with the Seattle Mariners of 2025. Those 90-72 M’s went 4-13 from May 24th-June 11th, crumbling against several subpar clubs after dropping two of three to the Astros and converting a 2.5 game AL West lead into chasing 4.0 games, eventually stretching to 7.0 at early July’s sneaky nadir.
This isn’t inherently predictive. These 2025 clubs all recovered for playoff seasons. The Astros, Orioles, Braves, Mets, and Diamondbacks all entered 2025 with better-than-coinflip odds of making the playoffs according to ZiPS, with Houston, Baltimore, and Atlanta outright favored to win their divisions. Every one had at least one stretch as bad or worse than Seattle’s 10-15 start (blessedly now 11-15) to 2026. Every one missed the playoffs.
It’s easier to point to the reasons why in those instances. Baltimore, Atlanta, and Houston saw major stars and/or their entire pitching staffs evaporate due to injury. Arizona suffered from the loss of Corbin Burnes after 11 brilliant starts as well as a cartoonishly stars and scrubs affair in their order. And of course, the Mets continued their interminable immersive performance, hidden secretly in their founding deed, condemning them to draw new generations closer to the works of Camus.
Seattle’s only endured some moderate injuries in 2026, with Bryce Miller ably spelled by Emerson Hancock. Brendan Donovan’s absences have hurt the lineup, but defensively Seattle was always going to be atrocious on the infield, which is the localization of “Angels In the Outfield” in the Stygian realms. Not a single member of Seattle’s front office expected nor counted on full healthy seasons from Victor Robles nor Miles Mastrobuoni.
But health isn’t the only factor. Those unfortunate clubs also saw a their rivals feast on their corpses, as well as those of others. Atlanta and New York finished more than a dozen games behind Philly, as did Arizona of the Dodgers. Baltimore and Houston had not only their own troubles, but gauntlets to face in the form of their divisional rivals. Houston got elbowed out by these M’s, while the O’s were feasted upon by an AL East that sent three clubs to the playoffs.
As it stands, Seattle is in fine shape. Ryan wrote recently on this subject of good teams sometimes having bad stretches, and vice-versa. He noted in his bullet points the hitting being great, except the most important players who receive the most plate appearances and have previously demonstrated the strongest capabilities and track records. In their series with the Athletics, Seattle’s stars finally flared, with Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodríguez, and Josh Naylor all securing 6+ hits and some massive boosts to their season numbers.
But just as vitally, the closing point today is how little the rest of the AL West has done to strike upon Seattle’s exposed early struggles. FanGraphs places Seattle’s playoff odds at 70.1% entering Thursday’s off day, tops in the division comfortably, with Texas now a bit better than a coin flip and the ostensible leaders in Sacramento at a 32.8% clip. PECOTA is bolder, seeing the M’s still as division favorites by majority over plurality, and averaging an 87.9% playoff odds.
Unless you believe Seattle to be fundamentally far worse than they were expected to be a few weeks ago, the rest of this season shouldn’t be scuttled from sitting 1-2.5 games back of three flawed clubs. The way the standings sit at present, the American League West is the only division with just a single >.500 team, with the 13-12 Athletics the worst division-leading club around. Their -15 run differential doesn’t endorse them ringingly, and the rest of the 12-12, 12-14, and 10-16 opponents are between where they were expected to be and worse. If Seattle was off to a scalding start, the way the division looks might have a repeat AL West crown looking like fait accompli. As it is, we can still settle for it looking likelier than not.
