PEORIA, Ariz. -- The scream will be seared into Mariners’ fans minds, maybe forever.
In the heartbreaking moments following Seattle’s Game 7 loss to the Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series, Bryan Woo was being interviewed on camera and asked about the legacy of the 2025 team -- which had gone further than any in franchise history.
In the pause between question and answer, a deafening shriek blending anger and anguish echoed from the showers. Woo absorbed it, then with one word, he organically encapsulated what an entire region felt after coming eight outs shy of its first World Series appearance.
“That,” Woo exhaled, gesturing to the noise’s direction.
It has been exactly four months since that traumatic night in Toronto, and we’ve come to learn that it was Julio Rodríguez whose vocal cords vibrated at capacity from the showers. The Mariners played their first game since that viral moment on Friday, opening their Cactus League slate against the Padres at Peoria Stadium.
For some, like Cal Raleigh, the sting of last season’s end will always simmer but also leveraged as lessons learned. For others, like Rodríguez, the page was quickly turned out of an “addicting” appetite to get back.
For all, the tone of this Spring Training has been far more at ease than recent years -- a reflection of a roster that believes it is good, can reach new October heights and knows what it’ll take to get there.
“One of the things our guys did very well last year is just being in the present moment,” Mariners manager Dan Wilson said. “And right now, it’s about preparing for what’s ahead of us going forward. That’s the approach we’re taking. And I think in some ways, that sting does provide some motivation. But I think with all of us, it just doesn’t do any good to dwell on. It’s time to keep pushing for what’s ahead.”
In recent years, the Mariners arrived in Arizona with a clichéd chip on their shoulder. Part of that was rooted in the “sour taste” left in their mouths by their own doing, as the first team on the outside looking into October in 2023 and ‘24 after ending a 21-year playoff drought in ‘22.
Wilson wasn’t here for the full season in each of those years. And while he was admittedly learning on the job last season, is inherently old-school and had never managed in any capacity prior to earning the gig in August 2024, it’s clear that players love playing for him.
No one more than the AL MVP runner-up.
“We’ve been close for a while,” said Raleigh, who invited Wilson to multiple Seahawks games during their Super Bowl run. “So it just feels normal. It’s not weird or anything. You feel like you’re bringing your dad. ... We’ve become very close.”
Wilson was criticized after that Game 7 loss for calling upon pivot reliever Eduard Bazardo instead of two-time All-Star Andrés Muñoz in the seventh inning. Bazardo surrendered a three-run homer to George Springer that helped Toronto win the pennant, then Muñoz pitched a scoreless eighth with no lead left to protect.
While it was ultimately Wilson’s call, sources said that the Mariners’ entire baseball operations staff in Toronto mapped out that exact scenario -- Bazardo vs. Springer, game on the line -- well before first pitch. Everyone in that meeting was on the same page.
Months later, it remains the type of decision-and-outcome that could haunt a baseball lifer for good. But it’s evident that Wilson has moved on, and it’s reflected through the team’s tone in Arizona.
“We're all hurt from last year,” Raleigh said. “But you take that and use it as fuel. ... We want to be a perennial team where making the playoffs is just an afterthought in a way. We want to be there every year. We want to be competing for the World Series, winning the World Series, and that's the expectation we want to have.”
On paper, that lofty ambition appears substantiated.
The Mariners are the AL West favorites per FanGraphs, and they might boast the AL’s best roster, buoyed by the front office’s decisive offseason.
For the first time in this era, Seattle entered camp without major question marks, having spent big in free agency (Josh Naylor on a five-year, $92.5 million contract) and traded boldly (for lefty reliever Jose A. Ferrer and All-Star infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan). The clubhouse took notice.
“Knowing that we belong there, and I think we're even better this year,” Logan Gilbert said. “So the expectations are there -- where they should be.”
The 2025 end will forever be rooted in this core’s identity. But it could also be the painful chapter that propels it forward.