Mariners’ season ends in ALDS, but young club will look for continued success moving forward

This Mariners season, full of memories and historic moments, came to a close after the sun set over T-Mobile Park on Saturday evening.

Fans packed the seats at the ballpark on a hazy afternoon in October, ready to watch playoff baseball in Seattle for the first time in more than two decades.

The Mariners, hosting American League West rival Houston in Game 3 of the best-of-five AL Division Series, took the field just after 1 p.m. to roaring cheers from a sold-out crowd of 47,690 that remained standing for much of the marathon that followed.

Mariners and Astros pitchers matched each other frame-by-frame, continually tossing up zeros in a six-hour, 22-minute contest before, at long last, Jeremy Pena’s go-ahead homer in the 18th lifted the Astros to a 1-0 victory and secured their trip to the AL Championship Series next week.

Even when it was over, many remained to celebrate the Mariners team that brought the postseason back to the Pacific Northwest, and competed until the season’s final out.

Every player that took the field for the Mariners — 11 position players and 10 pitchers during in the season’s final game — “played their hearts out,” Seattle shortstop J.P. Crawford said postgame.

“Everyone gave it all they’ve got,” Crawford said. “All 18 innings. … Obviously we came up short, but everyone gave everything they had. Everyone.”

Just as they did through 162 regular season games and five postseason games spanning the past seven months.

While Seattle’s season came to a close in three games in the ALDS, and this particular evening ended in a disappointing loss, the excitement surrounding this Seattle club, which seems to have opened a window for continued success, remains.

“From the fan base to ownership to front office to players, coaches, manager — everybody — we want to get back here,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “We will be back here.

“There’s no question in my mind. We’ve started something that we believe very strongly in.”

After so many seasons that ended short of the postseason in the past two decades, Seattle has once again built a contender.

The Mariners rotation — which brought in key top-end additions this season in Luis Castillo and Robbie Ray, and also includes young talents in former first-round picks Logan Gilbert and George Kirby — was solid throughout the season. So was their bullpen.

Center fielder Julio Rodriguez delivered an All-Star performance as a rookie. First baseman Ty France also had an All-Star season.

Players up and down the lineup made contributions in key moments throughout the season. Catcher Cal Raleigh forever etched his name in club history by ending the long postseason drought with the home run at T-Mobile Park earlier this month that clinched this trip to the playoffs.

The season included 90 regular season wins, the end of the 21-year drought and a thrilling wild-card sweep in Toronto before ending in the ALDS.

“It was amazing these last couple weeks,” Raleigh said. “The chase and clinching and winning in Toronto.”

Even the series against Houston — which included three wins for the Astros decided by a combined four runs — showed the Mariners’ ability to compete on this stage.

“The fact that we played three great games against these guys, it just goes to show how good of a team we are and we can compete with anyone in the league,” France said.

Which the Mariners will look to continue moving forward.

“The number of young players that played huge roles for us in this series — it is going to benefit us just immensely going forward,” Servais said.

And going forward, the Mariners will look to bring postseason baseball back to Seattle — again.

“We were starved to get playoff baseball here,” Servais said. “We got it here. Now we need to take the next step and look to improve our club in any way we can.”

Seattle’s young group of players, having now experienced the electricity postseason baseball brings, is hungry to return.

“It’s what you dream about as a kid, and to live it is — I can’t describe it, to be honest with you,” Mariners outfielder Jarred Kelenic said of the playoff atmosphere. “But, we gave the city of Seattle a taste of what’s to come. This is why you play baseball, so we’ll be back next year.”

“There’s definitely a lot of hope,” Rodriguez said. “I feel like this team has come a really long way, and I feel like this is just the beginning for all of us.”