Can Alex Ovechkin still break Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record?
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adminAlex Ovechkin would prefer not to talk about breaking Wayne Gretzky‘s NHL career goal-scoring record.
He’ll gladly talk about his cars, like his G-wagons and his Bentley coupe. Or the best high-end sushi joints on the road. He’ll happily indulge you about fashion: “Dolce, Dolce, Dolce,” he said, cataloguing his shirt, pants and shoes during an interview.
But the Gretzky record …
“I don’t even think about it right now, to be honest. It’s a long way away. And it’s a hard way. Whatever happens, happens,” the Washington Capitals star told ESPN. “You watch TV. You listen to the radio. You talk to your friends. Stuff comes up in conversations. But, realistically, it’s kind of far away.”
Well, not that far away. Ovechkin, 36, has 730 goals in 1,197 games. Gretzky had 894 goals in 1,487 games before The Great One retired in 1999.
“He’s in range,” said Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, once Ovechkin’s archrival but now part of a treaty of mutual admiration as the NHL’s elder superstars.
Crosby and Ovechkin saw each other recently in Chicago at the players’ preseason media tour.
“I told him that I hope he does it. I’d like to see him get it. It would be awesome,” Crosby said. “I just hope that all the goals he gets, as he’s trying to [break it], are against another team.”
Hockey Hall of Famer Mark Messier, who watched Gretzky score the majority of his goals while they were teammates with the Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s, is another believer.
“He’s definitely got a chance. It would be a remarkable record to break, if he does it,” he said. “He clearly wants to break it, having signed that contract.”
Ovechkin inked a five-year, $47.5 million contract extension with the Capitals in the offseason. “I spent all my NHL career in D.C. It’s my second home. I could end my career in the same place that it started,” he said.
Ovechkin has achieved everything an NHL player could hope to accomplish in a career. He has won three Hart trophies as league MVP. He was rookie of the year in 2005-06. He has one scoring title and led the league in goals nine times. He finally won the Stanley Cup in 2018, capturing playoff MVP honors before a cathartic, hazy, weekslong celebration that saw him making snow angels in a Washington, D.C., public fountain.
Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan admits Ovechkin’s pursuit of Gretzky’s record gives him motivation that other stars in his situation might not still possess at Ovechkin’s age.
“There’s a different energy about him now. The Cup thing was great for him. But I sense an engagement with him. He’s fired up to do what he can do. Wherever it ends up, he’s going to do his best,” MacLellan said.
But will his best be good enough to catch Gretzky? Given how time is running out — and given how much time was already taken from Ovechkin?
State of the chase
The date was Oct. 5, 2005. The Washington Capitals were hosting the Columbus Blue Jackets. At 7:21 of the second period, Alex Ovechkin scored his first NHL goal. He’d score his second just 4:30 later. Jeff Halpern, a sixth-year NHL pro and the team’s captain, assisted on both.
“That was a really dead time in Washington. The crowds would come and go — better on weekends, better against certain rivals. The joke was that we should throw the black curtain up over the empty seats in the upper deck, because it was so dead,” said Halpern, now an assistant coach with the Tampa Bay Lightning. “But one of the things you started to notice was that when Ovi would touch the puck, the building would start buzzing. You could see it right away. And he still fills the building with that energy years later.”
He scored a few more goals after that debut, and enters his 17th NHL season with 730 of them for his career, within a reasonable distance of Gretzky’s record of 894.
If Ovechkin maintains his career average of 0.61 goals per game, he would need 271 games to score another 165 goals and overtake Gretzky. With that pace, he would break the record during the 2024-25 season, the fourth year of his new contract.
But let’s say Ovechkin’s goals-per-game average takes a dip as he enters his twilight years. If he averages 0.50 goals per game — keeping in mind he averaged 0.53 goals per game last season — then he would need 330 games to break the record. At the earliest, that would be the 2025-26 season, which is the last year of his new contract.
If that average dropped even further to 0.40 goals per game — which would have still placed him in the top 30 goal scorers last season — then it would take Ovechkin 413 games to set the record, sometime in the 2026-27 season, around age 41 and after his current contract is over.
That’s not the plan, of course.
“I don’t know if he comes out and says it, but he wanted a five-year term for a reason, you know?” MacLellan said, with a laugh.
Somewhere in the NHL multiverse, there’s an Alex Ovechkin that didn’t need to keep scoring into his 40s to pass Gretzky. The road to the goal-scoring record is littered with ‘what ifs’ along the route. What if Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders (573 goals, 752 games) and Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins (690 goals, 915 games) were healthier? What if Jaromir Jagr (766 goals, 1,733 games) hadn’t lost time to work stoppages and a three-year sabbatical in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League? What if Lemieux, Jagr, Brett Hull (741 goals, 1,269 games) and even Gretzky himself hadn’t played during the offensive wasteland that were the “Trap Years” in the 1990s?
For Halpern, the ‘what if’ for Ovechkin concerns the time he lost to two work stoppages and the last two pandemic-impacted seasons.
“The COVID seasons hurt him. The two lockouts have hurt him. He definitely would have played with us [in 2004-05]. He was good enough as an 18-year-old,” Halpern said.
What would have happened if Ovechkin’s rookie campaign was in 2004-05 instead of the following season? According to ESPN Stats & Information projections, Ovechkin would have added 50 more goals added to his total, assuming he would have scored to his career goals-per-game average of 0.61 and played a full 82 games.
What about the 2012-13 lockout, which cost him 34 games? Assuming that Ovechkin scored at the 0.67 goals-per-game clip he had during that truncated season, that’s another 22 goals.
Ovechkin lost 51 games during the last two pandemic-impacted seasons. If he scored to his 2019-20 goals per game average of 0.71 in the 14 games he missed when the regular season was paused in March, Ovechkin adds nine more tallies to his total. If the 2020-21 season was a full 82 games and Ovechkin played the 37 games that were taken from him, he adds another 19 goals to his total, assuming a 0.53 goals-per-game average.
What if Alex Ovechkin had another 100 goals added to his total?
What if instead of 165, he needed just 65?
“You just can’t even think about the math on that,” Halpern said. “The Gretzky records were from another era. The 90s were the ‘Dead Puck Era.’ The goals were all down. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could have come close to breaking it now.”
Especially Ovechkin, he said. Given the way he plays, Halpern didn’t believe he’d have the longevity to get this close.
“I would have thought that Ovi would have hit a wall at some point, because he was a football player. And when you look at a football player in their 30s … like, watching Jerome Bettis trying to walk down the stairs in the morning? I thought that would be Ovi at this point, because he ran through guys for 82 games a year,” said Halpern.
“Well, he proved me wrong for sure.”
‘Russian Machine’
Despite being one of his generation’s top goal-scorers, Steven Stamkos never realistically thought he could break Gretzky’s record himself.
But a guy can dream.
“I remember I scored my 200th goal, and Tampa was handing out these T-shirts that said I was the fourth youngest player to 200 goals. That was the first time I had ever seen my name next to Gretzky’s,” said Stamkos, entering his 14th season with the Lightning. “There are certainly times when I thought about if I could have stayed healthy — especially during those peak, prime years of my career — that I’d be a hell of a lot closer to Ovechkin’s numbers. But it is what it is.”
For a while, it looked like Stamkos would be the player to challenge Ovechkin for their generation’s goal-scoring supremacy. For players with at least 500 appearances since Ovechkin’s rookie season, Stamkos is second to the Capitals star in goals-per-game average (0.52).
The problem is that Ovechkin has scored 730 in 1,197 games, while Stamkos has scored 439 goals in just 841 games.
“Obviously, we know he’s the best goal-scorer of our generation, by a mile. He’s played in a lot of games, which has resulted in a lot of goals. If he can continue that, then I think he has a shot. It’s going to be tough. But I wouldn’t put it past him,” Stamkos said.
“The thing that impresses me the most is just his durability. I think I’m just jealous of that.”
Ovechkin’s durability — summarized by the slogan “Russian Machine Never Breaks” — is an undeniable facet of his goal-scoring dominance. He’s played a full season five times. He’s missed three or fewer games in 12 of his 16 seasons. Since entering the league in 2005, only four players have appeared in more games than Ovechkin.
“I think genetics are involved. I think some people are strong as an ox when they’re little, and some people aren’t,” said Capitals defenseman John Carlson.
“It’s his natural strength and power. He gets through things. He can take checks. He can take hits,” MacLellan said. “He can withstand all of the physical stuff that’s within the game without being injured, you know?”
The Capitals’ GM rapped his knuckles on his wooden desk, twice, to avoid a jinx.
“He’s played through some stuff, too. He doesn’t take games off to feel like he’s 100%, like some players do. He’s played with some pretty serious stuff. But you can see when he’s playing hurt that he’s doing what he needs to do in order to score goals and help the team win,” he said.
Carlson has played his entire career with Ovechkin. He has seen that durability firsthand. He has also seen Ovechkin avoid the kinds of catastrophic injuries that have felled other players through the years.
“It’s not like he hasn’t had bruises and bumps. But luck is a huge thing in this game. Sometimes you get hurt on a play that happens 5,000 other times,” Carlson said.
Stamkos can attest. Like in 2013, when he slid into a goal post in Boston, broke his tibia and missed 45 games.
“That’s why I always admired Ovi. Because of his ability to be out there a lot,” Stamkos said.
So instead of this generation’s greatest goal-scorer, perhaps Stamkos goes down as its greatest “what if?” The Mike Bossy to Ovechkin’s Gretzky, to put it in 1980s terms.
“There are, for sure, ‘what ifs’ in every athlete’s career. It’s worked out, and you’re just thankful for the opportunity. But there are definitely times where you’re sitting there and think, ‘If I didn’t get that injury, where would I be? Would I be over 500 goals right now?’ But that’s life, right?” Stamkos said.
What the stars say
Stamkos thinks Ovechkin can catch Gretzky. “I think he’s got as good a chance as anyone,” he said. “I know that’s a funny way to look at it.”
Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche hopes Ovechkin keeps up the scoring pace.
“It would be great for the game, to have that buzz around the league,” he said. “I hope he gets close at least.”
Gets close? Was there a bit of Canadian pride coming out here, when it came to the sanctity of a Gretzky record?
“Oh, no,” he said, with a laugh. “I love Ovi. And I think he can do it, for sure.”
Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks has scored the seventh-most goals (404) since Ovechkin entered the NHL. He’s a little more skeptical, noticeably sighing when asked if Ovechkin can still set the record.
“If I had to say so, I’d say yes. But I just feel like his shot’s so good and he’s got some good playmakers around him that can get him the puck. Plus, he’s still so deadly on the power play. I think he’ll get it done,” Kane said.
The Blackhawks star is famous for his ability to score in a variety of ways. Ovechkin is more predictable in his approach on the majority of his goals.
“He kind of has his spot over there, right? Off that left circle. It’s not like anyone’s found a way to stop that yet, and he’s been in the league for how long?” Kane said. “It doesn’t sound like anyone’s going to suddenly start stopping him now.”
Especially when Ovechkin just keeps shooting. Along with his durability, Ovechkin’s shot generation has defined him during his career. He has 5,727 shots on goal since his NHL career began in 2005-06. The next highest shot producer during Ovechkin’s career is Eric Staal, who has played in 15 more games and yet has produced 1,956 fewer shots on goal than Ovechkin.
“It depends on what position you’re in. Sometimes you’re thinking, ‘I shouldn’t take the shot,'” said Ovechkin.
But in those moments, he just shoots. He said goaltenders are attuned to waiting for an offensive player to take a moment, settle the puck on a pass and then shoot.
“I love to shoot. If I have a chance to shoot the puck, I will,” he said.
For Crosby, that’s what makes Ovechkin’s pursuit of Gretzky a plausible one. He doesn’t rely on speed or fancy moves on breakaways to score. He relies on that shot.
“The guy can score from anywhere inside the blue line,” Crosby said.
Maybe in his old age, Ovechkin will just stand in front of net and let the pucks bounce in. Become the next Patric Hornqvist or something.
Crosby laughs, knowingly. “Yeah, it doesn’t matter how you score them. Just that you score them.”
Like Crosby would feed Hornqvist when the two were on the Penguins, Ovechkin has had his share of helpers, too.
“He needs to find his spots where to shoot from. Which is why for [Ovechkin], who he’s playing with is really important. You need a creative playmaking center that really helps him out. If you didn’t have the guy, he’d be standing around all game waiting for the puck,” MacClellan said.
“Fortunately for him, Nick Backstrom and [Evgeny Kuznetsov] understand him, know where he’s going to be and they find him. For Nick, it’s the perfect match: He would rather pass, Ovechkin would rather shoot and he understands how [Ovechkin] plays. He’ll do things without looking,” the GM added.
Halpern had experience as Ovechkin’s linemate, too.
Well, briefly.
‘I can’t play with this guy’
Halpern remembers watching Ovechkin at the IIHF world championships in 2004, knowing that the Capitals were going to make him their franchise player. “He had a couple of big hits, but watching him skating, it wasn’t like I was watching Mike Modano or Joe Sakic or the goal-scorers that I idolized,” he said.
Then they met for the first time as teammates in 2005. “He was wearing cutoff jeans. His shirt was way too tight,” Halpern recalled. “I remember there was a preseason game against the Philadelphia Flyers when he scored against them and then winked at their bench as he skated by. And we’re all thinking, ‘This kid is going to get us beat up.'”
Before their first game together, Halpern remembered Ovechkin giving him and center Dainius Zubrus some directives.
“He told us that on the power play, if he’s in the middle, just get him the puck. He’s like, in broken English, ‘I’m a big guy. I can shake some people off.’ Now, we had some big defensemen in the league back then. Players like Derian Hatcher, for example. Ovi was big, but he wasn’t one of those guys,” Halpern said. “It wasn’t until that first game against Columbus that we realized how tough he was: On his first shift, he ran through a defender and, like, broke the glass. He was such a force when he started moving. He was trying to hurt people, with and without the puck.”
Halpern had four points in his first two games of the season. By his 23rd game, he had 16 points. But just a few weeks into the season, he jumped off the Ovechkin scoring train.
“I laugh about it, but my kids and wife want to punch me when I tell it. I went to coach Glen Hanlon, and I said, ‘I can’t play with this guy. He’s all over the ice. I don’t know where he is, and it’s not the way I play.’ The next game Chris Clark was on that line with Ovechkin, while I was playing with Brian Willsie and Matt Pettinger. Two very good players and exceptional people — who are not Alex Ovechkin. So that was a mistake.”
There’s only one Alex Ovechkin, much like there was only one Wayne Gretzky. Legendary benchmarks are reserved for singular talents. And when those records are broken, the moment transcends the sport to become something of global significance, from the rinks in North America all the way to the streets of Moscow where Ovechkin grew up.
“I think it’s going to be big. Not just back home, but I think it’s going be big all over the place,” Ovechkin said.
He catches himself thinking too far ahead. Ovechkin rhythmically lowers his hands a few times, like he’s calming the expectations of the entire hockey world, including his own.
“But again, realistically: Let’s wait.”
Additional research by Bryan Beasley of ESPN Stats & Information.
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Sources: LSU RB Durham doubtful vs. Ole Miss
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3 hours agoon
September 26, 2025By
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LSU leading rusher Caden Durham is doubtful for Saturday night’s game at Ole Miss because of an ankle injury, sources told ESPN.
Durham was injured in last Saturday’s 56-10 win over SE Louisiana and has been limited in practice all week. According to sources, he is still dealing with the injury and did not run well in the team’s final walk-through Friday.
Durham had been listed as questionable on the SEC availability report on Thursday.
Durham easily leads the Tigers with 213 yards on 52 carries. LSU’s second-leading rusher, Harlem Berry, has 87 yards on 15 carries. Sophomore Ju’Juan Johnson is expected to see more action, as will junior Kaleb Jackson.
LSU’s offense is No. 111 nationally in rushing, averaging just 116.8 yards per game. That’s the second-lowest average in the SEC behind South Carolina (80.3).
The good news for the Tigers is that quarterback Garrett Nussmeier appears to have worked through a torso injury and is back in form. LSU has the country’s No. 30 passing offense.
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Wetzel: Mike Gundy dug in his heels and got left behind
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5 hours agoon
September 26, 2025By
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Dan WetzelSep 26, 2025, 07:20 AM ET
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Dan Wetzel is a senior writer focused on investigative reporting, news analysis and feature storytelling.
Back in November of 2015, when his Clemson program was still barreling toward a national title (it would win two of them), Dabo Swinney spoke about the life cycle of a business.
“You’ve got the birth. You’ve got the growth. You’ve got plateau. You’ve got decline. And you’ve got death,” Swinney said. “Those great businesses out there, those great programs, they don’t plateau.
“So how do you do that?” he continued. “You have to constantly reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow. You change. You have to do that. You don’t just change to change, but you have to always challenge yourself each and every year and make sure, ‘OK, this may be how we’ve done it, but is it still the right way?'”
The business of college football in 2025 is different from 2015. Direct revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal have not just altered the way rosters are assembled, but even how individuals and teams need to be coached.
It’s like most businesses and industries. Nothing is static. You either enthusiastically welcome that, or, in Swinney’s words, “You’ve got death.”
Mike Gundy is very much alive; he just is no longer employed at Oklahoma State, where over 21 seasons he became the program’s all-time winningest coach. He and Swinney have much in common.
Both are in their mid-to-late 50s (Swinney 55, Gundy 58). Both built up underperforming programs through their own force of will — a combination of competitive drive, innovative schemes and personal charisma. During the 2010s, few were better.
They have also been among the most vocal critics, and least enthusiastic embracers, of the new era of the sport. It shows.
Dabo’s Tigers, hyped as title contenders in the preseason, are 1-3 with losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse. Gundy, meanwhile, was fired after a 1-2 start that included a humbling loss to Tulsa.
In his final news conference before being dismissed, Gundy bemoaned pretty much everything new.
“It’s like being in an argument with your wife,” Gundy said. “And you know you’re right. It makes zero difference. You’re wrong. You might as well just get over it, give in, and things are going to be much smoother.”
It seems that defeatist attitude and begrudging acceptance of new dynamics bled into Gundy’s program.
Anyone can add a player through the portal. But if you don’t accept and understand the portal, if you aren’t spending time passionately trying to make it work best for you, are you getting the right player? You can’t go in with feet dragging.
Swinney is a traditionalist; often for admirable reasons. He wants to be loyal to players he recruited, preferring to believe in and develop them rather than just transfer in a better talent.
Times change, though. You can lament it. You can pine for the old days. Or you can adapt so you don’t wind up like a typewriter repair shop.
Establishment coaches often rail against transfer culture, painting players who jump around as disloyal or running from a challenge. That might be the case for some, but for many others, the portal is a chance to prove their worth by working up the ladder from smaller to bigger programs.
Big programs recruit based on sophomore and junior years of high school. A lot of guys fall through those cracks. Maybe they hailed from small towns or hadn’t hit growth spurts, or their parents couldn’t afford throwing coaches and nutritionists. Maybe they didn’t get invited to the “Elite 11.”
Yet, once in college, they worked and worked and improved and improved, generally at smaller programs without the fanciest of locker rooms or some unearned sense of greatness based on “tradition.”
Others might have failed at their first school, or got spurned by a previous coach. Now, on their last chance, they are fighting the way they always should have.
As with old-school recruiting, coaches who love the portal are probably going to get the best of those players over coaches who just tolerate the portal. Diamonds are everywhere.
Syracuse and Georgia Tech didn’t have more “talent” — and certainly not higher-ranked recruits — when they beat Clemson. Same with Tulsa and OSU. They didn’t have better facilities or higher-paid assistants.
But they might have had what Dabo and Gundy used to exude in excess — an intense drive to win. High school recruiting rankings don’t matter to the scoreboard.
Gundy couldn’t make it work in the new era. Can the extremely talented Swinney? A lot of coaches can’t. It’s not an age thing, though — Indiana’s Curt Cignetti is 64 and thriving. It’s an attitude thing. It’s about fervently attacking new possibilities.
Reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow.
It can’t be like holding your tongue in a fight with your spouse.
Mike Gundy already tried that approach.
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From The Big Dumper to … magic? Why Mariners might have the mojo to finally win it all
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5 hours agoon
September 26, 2025By
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Alden GonzalezSep 26, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close- ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
SEATTLE — It had been 24 years and five days since this city experienced its last division title, a wait that turned its baseball fans into one of this country’s most tortured. Babies were born, grew up, went to college, got a job, and their beloved Seattle Mariners still had not finished atop the American League West. Maybe this is how it was supposed to happen. With a nucleus that finally righted itself — after stumbling time and again — in the most emphatic way possible. With a dominant, soul-cleansing, late-season series sweep of the franchise’s greatest nemesis. With Cal Raleigh punctuating a division title with his 60th home run Wednesday night.
With, of all things, some help from the supernatural.
Three weeks ago, when the team was struggling and hope seemed lost, Steven Blackburn, a 26-year-old lifelong Mariners fan, found a witch. An Etsy witch, to be exact, which is precisely what you might think it is: a self-proclaimed sorcerer providing services through the popular e-commerce website.
Blackburn and one of his best friends had often joked about using an Etsy witch to fix some of their biggest problems and first thought about contracting one to help the Mariners some time around June. The Mariners weren’t playing quite bad enough then — but by Sept. 5, after a stretch of 15 losses in 21 games, they were. Blackburn searched for witches willing to cast generic spells, found a user going by the name of SpellByLuna and asked for an incantation that would turn around the Mariners’ once-promising season.
Said Blackburn: “Best $16 I’ve ever spent.”
The next morning at 5 a.m., Blackburn, an RV mechanic who lives about 30 miles north of T-Mobile Park, received a message that the spell had been cast. Later that night, All-Star center fielder Julio Rodríguez took over a game the Mariners absolutely needed, homering twice and making a leaping catch in a 10-2 victory. The next day, the Mariners blew out the Atlanta Braves 18-2. They’ve lost only once since, firing off 17 wins in 18 games since “Luna” unveiled the conjuration. Fans now show up at the ballpark in witches’ hats and, at times, full-on witch costumes. The organization has wrapped its arms around the concept, referencing the Etsy witch on social media and inviting Blackburn to the ballpark on Fan Appreciation Night earlier this month.
“It’s been super crazy,” he said. “I did this Etsy thing as a joke. I didn’t expect it to be this big.”
Blackburn wasn’t old enough to enjoy the 116-win 2001 team that claimed the previous division title and advanced into the AL Championship Series. His most vivid memories were of Mariners teams of the 2010s that featured the likes of Kyle Seager, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Félix Hernández, none of which advanced into October, and of younger groups that came up painfully short in 2021, 2023 and 2024.
Blackburn fully acknowledges the absurdity of it all. But when certain things happen — Mitch Garver hitting his first triple in six years, journeyman infielder Leo Rivas delivering a walk-off home run, Victor Robles diving from out of nowhere to make a game-saving catch — he can’t help but believe there might be something to it. The 2025 Mariners look like the franchise’s deepest, most talented collection in a generation, headlined by a transformative individual season. They have the tortured fan base, the conquest of a bitter rival, and even a little magic around them.
“It just feels like we’re almost destined,” Blackburn said. “It’s been 48 years that this team has been around. This feels like it’s about time.”
IT WAS THE first day of June when Mariners general manager Justin Hollander first reached out to Amiel Sawdaye, assistant GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks, to inquire about Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor. The trade deadline was still more than eight weeks away and the D-backs still maintained reasonable hope that they might contend. But Hollander vowed to stay in touch.
Under Jerry Dipoto, in his 10th year overseeing baseball operations, the Mariners had built a reputation as aggressive dealers. Trading promising prospects for veteran players on the verge of free agency, though, was the type of move they steered away from. But Suárez, a third baseman on a 50-homer pace, and Naylor, a first baseman who can hit for power, put the ball in play and even steal bases, addressed the team’s two biggest holes at a time that demanded urgency.
Raleigh was in the midst of a historic season. Rodríguez and the majority of the team’s best pitchers — starters Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller, relievers Andres Muñoz and Matt Brash — were in their mid to late 20s, representing what should be the apex of their careers. And the failure of these past two years, both of which saw the Mariners finish a game shy of the playoffs, had revealed something about the follies of pragmatism.
“You can sometimes take for granted how good you think your team is and how likely or not likely you are to make the postseason,” Hollander said. “We felt like this year’s team had the potential to be the best of any of the other teams.”
So Hollander continually scribbled reminders to call Sawdaye on the notepad he keeps beside a computer on his office desk. He checked in every week or so, just to make sure nothing had changed. The Mariners had interest in acquiring both players in a package deal, but when the call finally came near the end of July, the D-backs revealed their plans to separate them. Naylor arrived on July 24 and brought a type of edge the team needed. Suárez, a beloved figure from a previous stint in Seattle in 2022-23, followed on the night of July 30 and brought the type of vibe that soon became crucial.
Later, sources told ESPN, the Mariners were on the verge of acquiring star closer Jhoan Duran from the Minnesota Twins. But when the Philadelphia Phillies upped their offer, the Mariners relented.
They still came away with two corner infielders who lengthened their lineup and made them a more dynamic unit than they’ve been in recent years, one not solely reliant on Raleigh and Rodríguez. Since then, the rotation has gotten healthy — minus Woo, whose pectoral injury is not expected to impact his postseason availability — and rounded into the type of form it displayed amid a record-setting 2024 season, posting a 2.50 ERA over these past 18 games. The bullpen — not only Muñoz and Brash, but Gabe Speier, Eduard Bazardo, Carlos Vargas and Caleb Ferguson, the veteran lefty acquired after a deal for Duran fell through — continues to look devastating.
Said Rodríguez: “We can do it all.”
“We’ve got athleticism, we’ve got team speed, we’ve got power, we’ve got starting pitching, a back end of the bullpen,” Dipoto said. “It’s very rare in our lives you get all those things hitting at the same time. And here in the last few weeks, they are. And they showed — they’re on a mission. And I don’t think that mission stops with making it to the postseason.”
THE LAST TIME the Mariners hosted a playoff game, it was Oct. 15, 2022, and to their fans, it became the most excruciating day possible. Seventeen innings went by without a run being scored. A Washington Huskies college football game started and ended during that time. Then Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña led off the top of the 18th inning with a home run to center field. After 6 hours, 22 minutes, the Mariners’ 2022 season — the one that ended the longest active playoff drought in North American professional sports — was over.
Heading into 2025, the Mariners had existed for 47 years and made the playoffs only five times. The best group was assembled in 2001, two years after the franchise’s most iconic player, Ken Griffey Jr., left to join the Cincinnati Reds. The Mariners tied the Chicago Cubs for the most wins in modern baseball history that year, then got trounced by the New York Yankees in the ALCS. Twenty-one years went by without another Mariners team in the playoffs; 24 went by without a division championship.
That 2001 season didn’t just mark the last time the Mariners had won the AL West; it marked the last time the people of Seattle had seen its team score a run at home in the playoffs, let alone win a game.
“We all know the history,” Rodríguez said. “We all know the hunger that this fan base has. That’s one thing that motivates us.”
The Mariners emerged from this year’s trade deadline with a 9-1 homestand, validating every belief that they had morphed into a powerhouse. They were 67-53 by Aug. 12, tied with the Houston Astros atop the AL West. Then the Mariners started to slide again. They went 2-7 on a trip through Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. They bounced back by winning four of six at home but followed by dropping two of three in Cleveland.
Then they went to Tampa and lost back-to-back games to the Rays, after which Dipoto and manager Dan Wilson held a team meeting largely to emphasize that this was a talented, accomplished group that didn’t require any one individual to carry it. Suárez spoke about the importance of staying within themselves, J.P. Crawford emphasized the need for resiliency.
It didn’t work; the Mariners gave up eight runs in the first two innings of the finale, lost again, flew to Atlanta and were dominated by Braves ace Chris Sale on a Friday night, falling 3½ games out in the AL West.
Then, suddenly, everything changed.
The Mariners at one point won 10 in a row for the first time in more than three years. In one four-game series against the Los Angeles Angels, their pitchers set a major league record by accumulating 62 strikeouts. Over a 16-1 stretch, leading up to when they clinched the division, they outscored opponents by a combined 68 runs.
Maybe it was sorcery. Maybe it was the mustaches so many of the players and coaches started rocking when things went poorly, no matter how absurd some of them looked. Maybe it was the bag of crunchy Cheetos Dipoto began delivering to radio play-by-play voice Rick Rizzs on a daily basis, a callback to an old slump-busting ritual that reemerged on that Saturday in Atlanta because, as Dipoto said, “When he gets Cheetos, we score runs.”
Maybe it was a team that grew through struggle and finally learned how to overcome.
“We never give up,” Rodríguez said. “I feel like there’s a lot of people that break under pressure, and I feel like us as a team, we stick together. We’ve had some tough stretches, but I feel like that made us stronger. We were able to break through that. And we stayed together through that.”
DURING BATTING PRACTICE at Daikin Park in Houston last Sunday, Crawford wore socks that read: “Do Epic S—.” Then he came to bat in the second inning and hit the grand slam that basically took the archrival Astros out of the game, catapulted the Mariners to an emphatic three-game sweep and put them in position to capture their long-awaited division title.
The Astros’ ballpark is the site of the Yordan Álvarez walk-off home run against Robbie Ray in Game 1 of the 2022 AL Division Series, a moment from which those Mariners never recovered. It’s the home of a team that had claimed seven division titles over the past eight years, continually pushing Seattle into the background. And it’s a reminder of a year like 2023, when the Mariners arrived in Arlington, Texas, on the second-to-last weekend of the regular season trailing the division by only a half-game, were swept, and later watched the playoffs from their couches.
This time, though, it felt different.
“You could just feel the energy around in the clubhouse,” Crawford, the Mariners’ longest-tenured player, recalled. “Like, ‘Oh s—, it’s go time.’ It was cool.”
The Mariners never trailed in that series. Woo, Kirby and Gilbert combined to give up one run in 17 innings, during which they struck out 18 and walked two. Eight Mariners hitters drove in at least a run. The Mariners went into Houston tied for the top spot in the AL West and came out of it leading by three games, while holding the tiebreaker, with six remaining. Before their home series this week against the last-place Colorado Rockies was over — an eventual sweep, putting their winning streak at seven games — the Mariners had clinched a playoff spot, sealed the division, and earned a first-round bye, guaranteeing home-field advantage in the ALDS.
Given the opponent, the time of year and the ramifications, that series against the Astros might have been the most important in franchise history.
“We knew that was what had to happen,” Raleigh said. “It’s no secret — the Astros have owned this division for a long time. And to go out there and do it at their place, it meant a lot. It’s not just a random three games somewhere. They’re a really good team, they’re really tough. To do it in that fashion was special to these guys.”
The Mariners have fallen just short of the playoffs by stumbling down the stretch in each of the past two years. In 2023, an incredible August was followed by a brutal September that prompted elimination on the second-to-last day of the regular season. In 2024, the late-season firing of longtime manager Scott Servais was not enough to save a season that saw the Mariners blow a 10-game lead in 31 days and find themselves once again chasing over the final month. They grew from it.
“I just think that over the years, besides when we got to the playoffs in ’22, there’s always been so much pressure on us to get to the playoffs,” Kirby said. “And I think all of us were just like, ‘Screw that. Take every game one game at a time, do what you gotta do to get ready today and help the team.’ I think the vibes were so good. Normally, we feel all this pressure, but we just went out there and did our thing.”
When the final out was recorded Wednesday night, and the AL West had been secured, Wilson stood on the top step of the dugout and attempted to take it all in for a moment. Before he was thrust into the role as manager near the end of last August, Wilson spent a dozen years as a stalwart catcher during the best run in franchise history.
The Mariners made the playoffs four times with Wilson behind the plate from 1994 to 2005. Experiencing the emotions of it again felt “weirdly familiar and weirdly unfamiliar,” he said. He’s in a completely different role now, but he remembered the feeling so vividly. Of an entire city coming alive. Of a baseball team mattering so much. Of the excitement over what lies ahead.
“It brings back a lot,” Wilson said. “And it just feels really good that T-Mobile was as loud as it was, and as positive as it was, and that these guys are the reason why.”
A NAVY BLUE felt board is plastered on one of the walls inside the home clubhouse at T-Mobile Park, displaying Polaroid pictures of grown men donning the award handed out after every win: a pair of gold-plated testicles hanging from a chain and inscribed with a trident, appropriately called the “Nuts of the Game.” Thirty-eight pictures hung on that board this week. Only five of them featured Raleigh, who has taken on the responsibility of handing it out.
“He never gives the nuts to himself,” Crawford said. “He’s always looking out for someone else. It’s never about him. In reality, it should be.”
Raleigh will head into the final weekend, a home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with a realistic chance of breaking the AL home-run record of 62 set by Aaron Judge in 2022, and just as big a chance of beating him out for this year’s MVP Award. That the switch-hitting Raleigh, famously known as “The Big Dumper” for his prominent posterior, has achieved these offensive numbers — a .954 OPS, 60 home runs and 125 RBIs — while starting 118 games at catcher is akin to “asking Josh Allen to play middle linebacker on top of being the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills,” Hollander said.
The Mariners have played a major league-leading 14 games that lasted at least 11 innings this season, which only means longer nights for their best player. Their staff is composed of pitchers who throw a lot of sinkers and splitters, pitches that are often thrown in the dirt, which also means more blocking. Raleigh has made 4,385 block attempts this season, more than all but five other players. He has squatted to receive 8,715 pitches, fourth-most in the majors, over 1,063 innings, third-most. He has also absorbed countless foul tips, made countless pitch calls and spent countless hours dedicated to the task of getting opposing hitters out, all while hitting like few others.
“As a catcher, you come off the field at the end of the night being both physically and mentally exhausted,” Wilson said. “To be able to do that night in and night out and produce like he has offensively — it’s never been done like this before. We can honestly say that.”
Raleigh has produced 12 more home runs than the previous record for a primary catcher, set by Salvador Perez in 2021. Not long after clearing Perez, he passed Mickey Mantle for the most home runs by a switch-hitter (54 in 1961) and Griffey for the most home runs in Mariners history (56 in 1997 and ’98). He did it while coming off a Platinum Glove season, during a year in which he has made his right-handed swing every bit as lethal as his left-handed one. But in Seattle, there’s an appeal to Raleigh that stretches beyond production.
“He feels like one of them, and the way he interacts is insanely humble,” Dipoto said. “And when you talk to him, it’s not an act. It’s who he is.”
Raleigh started the scoring on Wednesday night with a first-inning home run, his 59th. Seven innings later — on the first pitch of his last at-bat, with 42,883 fans once again serenading him with MVP chants — he finished it with his 60th, tying a major league record with his 11th multi-homer game this season.
“Sixty,” Raleigh said later that night. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I was gonna hit 60 in my life.”
Earlier this spring, ahead of putting pen to paper on a $105 million extension, Raleigh met with the Mariners’ principal decision-makers to express his desire to win with this group and hoped to learn that they shared his ambition. What followed was the best offensive season a catcher has ever produced, at the center of a baseball team that, depending on what happens over this next month, could be the greatest this city has ever experienced.
“To do it in this fashion has been crazy and exciting and fun and everything that I hoped and dreamed it would be,” said Raleigh, who snapped the Mariners’ playoff drought with a walk-off homer three years earlier. “This is a great, great, great moment for this organization and city. We know we still have more work to do; we’re really excited to have that opportunity.”
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