The AL West Race Is Wide Open

On June 17, I wrote about the Mariners’ consistent success in overperforming their run differential and winning close games. The day after, they won their fourth game in a row, raising their record to 44-31 and their division win probability to 86.3%. Sitting 10 games above the second-place Astros, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Seattle would claim the division crown. But six weeks later, the landscape looks far different. The Mariners blew that 10-game lead in just 24 games, the quickest that any team has ever surrendered such a large divisional lead, and the Astros even pulled ahead for a bit. The Mariners are now back in first, but just one game separates the two clubs.

The Mariners have gone 15-23 since their June 18 win that brought their division odds to an apex (12-23 if you take out a sweep of the White Sox, who are currently riding a 20-game losing streak). Some of this regression was to be expected – specifically, an offense that seemed to always find the timely hits stopped doing so. Seattle’s .388 BABIP in high-leverage situations fell to .225 over the past six weeks, and as small-sample good luck turned to small-sample bad luck, the team’s run scoring cratered. The Mariners have seen small improvements in low- and medium-leverage situations thanks to a recent offensive outburst — they’ve scored 6.3 runs per game over their nine games since they acquired outfielder Randy Arozarena — but it hasn’t been enough to fully right the ship. Their 94 wRC+ over their cold stretch and 95 wRC+ overall rank last among playoff hopefuls.

Recent injuries have taken a toll on Seattle’s already-struggling lineup. In the span of a couple days, up-the-middle starters Julio Rodríguez and J.P. Crawford each hit the IL, Rodríguez with an ankle sprain and Crawford with a pinky fracture. At the time of the injuries, the pair combined for 39% of the Mariners’ total position player WAR. Replacement starters Victor Robles and Dylan Moore have performed admirably in their absence, but they aren’t projected to keep this up for the rest of the season.

Having to play Robles and Moore every day has thinned out Seattle’s depth, forcing the team to use 26-year old rookie Leo Rivas and up/down utilityman Jason Vosler off the bench. The two of them have combined for a 50 wRC+ this season, and as a result, the Mariners have cratered in high-stakes, pinch-hit situations. That may not seem like a huge deal, but for an offense that lives and dies on the margins, getting the most out of its bench matters a lot. Mariners pinch-hitters have two hits in their last 26 at-bats and are striking out 45% of the time.

The final component of Seattle’s recent struggles has been its bullpen, which was a strength during the first few months. Mariners relievers have been bitten by the walk and home run bugs as of late. Three of their main guys (Trent Thornton, Tayler Saucedo, and the since-traded Ryne Stanek) have ERAs and FIPs north of five over the past six weeks, with only Andrés Muñoz reliably getting outs in high-leverage situations. Austin Voth, surprisingly solid in the first half, was elevated to setup duty but has struggled to protect close leads; he has the most negative WPA on the team during their skid.

As the Mariners scuffled, the Astros capitalized on their window of opportunity. Their AL-best 24-14 record since June 18 has catapulted them from a losing team to a winning one, and their 43.7% odds to win the division are just a few points less than Seattle’s probability. Houston isn’t especially dominant in any statistical category, but it is getting above-average production up and down the roster.

The Astros’ most important contributor as of late has been Yordan Alvarez, who has more than recovered from a slow-by-his-standards start. He had a 122 wRC+ through the end of May, but since the start of June, he’s slashing .335/.427/.631 with 11 home runs and a 190 wRC+, which is the fourth-best mark in baseball during that span, behind only Aaron Judge (249), Juan Soto (204), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr (193). Alvarez’s heater has made up for Kyle Tucker’s prolonged absence with a shin injury.

The rest of the Houston offense has been pulling its weight, too. Yainer Diaz has turned his season around with a .357 average during his team’s torrid stretch; his high-contact, ultra-high chase profile is reliant on a high BABIP, which he’s been able to find as of late by hitting more line drives. Over the same span, the infield trio of Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Jeremy Peña have been modestly above average, solidifying an offense that struggled earlier in the season because of its lack of depth.

On the pitching side, both Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez are experiencing their best stretches of the season. Brown is finding success mostly because he is allowing fewer home runs, and Valdez has made tangible tweaks to his pitch mix. After experimenting with a kitchen-sink approach last year, Valdez has simplified his arsenal in 2024. He’s especially leaning on his curveball, and understandably so. He has thrown 35% curves over his past seven starts, and opponents are hitting .093 and running a 40.4% whiff rate against it. During that seven-start span, beginning with a seven-inning, one-run, seven-strikeout gem against the Orioles on June 23, Valdez is 5-0 with a 2.95 ERA; the Astros have won each of those seven games.

The Astros should also be pleased by what they saw from trade deadline acquisition Yusei Kikuchi, for whom they paid a rather steep price, on Friday night. In his first start with Houston, Kikuchi struck out 11 batters across 5 2/3 innings in an eventual 3-2 Houston win over the Rays, with his lone blemish coming on the two-run homer he allowed to new Rays outfielder Dylan Carlson, the second batter Kikuchi faced. Of course, this was only one start, but the outing provided us with reason to believe the Astros may have unlocked something with Kikuchi: He almost completely shelved his curveball, which was his most-used secondary with the Blue Jays, in favor of more changeups. At first glance, this pitch doesn’t look particularly impressive, with much less drop than other comparable offerings, but it works well for him because it drops considerably more than his high-carry fastball. In Kikuchi’s Astros debut, his changeup ran a 44% swinging strike rate and 79% whiff rate.

The Mariners are ever-so-slightly favored to win the division, but the two teams have the same projected end-of-season record: 85-77. With this relatively low win total potentially carrying the division, the door is open for the third-place Rangers if they can go on a run to get back in the race. Sitting 5.5 games out in the West, a lot needs to go right for them to contend in a season that, so far, has gone terribly wrong.

The Rangers currently have nearly an entire starting rotation’s worth of starters on the injured list. Tyler Mahle is slated to come off the IL to start on Tuesday against the Astros, but the pending returns of the other three starters on the shelf — Max Scherzer, Jon Gray, and Jacob deGrom — are further out. Last week, Scherzer went back on the IL with shoulder fatigue after he missed the first 87 days of the season recovering from offseason back surgery, and he does not yet have a timetable to return. Gray is expected to miss up to a month after he was placed on the IL with a strained groin a week ago. deGrom, meanwhile, has yet to begin a rehab assignment as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery, and it’s uncertain if he’ll be ready to pitch before the end of the season.

Depth Charts currently forecasts the quartet to combine for 125 innings of 3.96 ERA ball through the end of the regular season, but if these four pitchers outperform their projections, they could make this a three-team race. For example, if the quartet combines for a 3.50 ERA instead of 3.96, Texas’ projected rest-of-season run differential would exceed that of the Mariners. There are also signs of life from the offense, with the entire heart of the lineup projected to hit better the rest of the way. To be clear, a Rangers division title is still a long shot, but there is a world in which their bad luck breaks and everything goes their way over the final two months. At the very least, they should be able to stay close enough in the standings to make things interesting.