Will pain of Game 7 loss fuel Mariners to push further next season?

Tim Booth, The Seattle Times on Oct 21, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TORONTO — Eyes were red and swollen. Tears were shielded from cameras. Conversations were few, hugs were plentiful and there was at least one audible scream of anger, frustration, sadness — all of it — in a single outburst from a restricted area just for the players.

It was how a clubhouse should feel and sound after a loss of such magnitude.

“I don’t think you can really put a word on it,” M’s pitcher Bryan Woo said. “Frustration. Sad for all the guys. You’re together with a group for as long as we are and everyone working toward one goal, for it to end like this is heartbreaking.”

The 49th season of Mariners baseball ended late Monday night while the Toronto Blue Jays partied well after midnight on the field of Rogers Centre following a 4-3 win in the deciding Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

Toronto’s players partied on the field. Their fans remained in the stands to celebrate with them. Music blared through the stadium speakers as friends and family ran around on the field with a ballclub basking in its first trip to the World Series in 32 years.

It was the celebration the Mariners wanted to have. After coming so close and falling short it makes one wonder if that celebration will ever arrive, no matter how historic the season ended up being.

“It was an awesome season for us and how far we came, how far we went in the season, in the postseason. It was a really good taste of what will be for us in the coming years,” M’s closer Andrés Muñoz said. “We have a really good team, and today wasn't the day for the win. But we know that we are confident we're going to come back next year stronger.”

Going into their 50th season, the label will remain attached to the Mariners as the only team never to play in a World Series. They were closer than ever before. Not just one win away. They were nine outs away with a two-run lead when the bottom of the seventh inning began.

Putting it into that context makes the loss even more crushing. So close to ending so much — the stigma and the ridicule — plus the validation that would come from finally getting there.

And after losing a series like that, it makes the rebound that much more challenging. Can this team take the pain of a knife-twisting defeat forward as something to build off for the future?

“I think all of us now have had a taste of how close we can get and how good this team can be,” M’s manager Dan Wilson said. “So I think once you get that, that's what you're shooting for again the next year, and I know that will continue to be the goal. That was the goal this year. It will continue to be the goal, to get to that final step and, you know, this year we were one game short.”

Wilson will need to wear a significant share of what happened. It was his decision go with Eduard Bazardo and not Muñoz in the seventh inning and ultimately led to George Springer’s three-run homer that proved to be the difference in Game 7.

It was a mistake, and it cost his team.

“There's no question that it's going to sting, but the kind of season they had, doing things that no team in this organization has ever done and knocking on the door of a World Series, all that, it's due to how hard they've worked, how hard they've played all season long, all the times they have come back, all the times they have bounced back,” Wilson said. “It's a special team in there.”

It helps that most of the M’s core that experienced the pain of this loss will return. Cal Raleigh was immediately calling the loss in the ALCS a failure and that will help set the standard for how this team attempts to grow from what happened.

In a best-case scenario, what happened to the Mariners this time around becomes similar to say the Red Sox of 2003. Boston lost to New York on a memorable walk-off home run against the Yankees in Game 7 in 2003 and a year later beat the Yankees in Game 7 and eventually won the World Series.

That’s a best-case scenario. But it is possible considering who the M’s will have back next season.

“There is no less expectation for us than this,” Julio Rodríguez said. “And I know it just got over but I know we have something. I know we all have something to look forward to next year.”

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