SEATTLE -- For the eighth time in 2021, the Mariners were walk-off winners, but Saturday’s 5-4 victory over Oakland carried far more weight than any in this summer of promise and progress, which has Seattle 2 1/2 games out of a postseason spot with just four games until Friday’s Trade Deadline.

At the forefront of the victory were the Mariners’ two biggest trade chips, Mitch Haniger and Kendall Graveman. Each has carried a veteran presence for one of the Majors’ youngest teams, while looking like All-Stars for extended stretches this year, and as such, would be coveted commodities to any contending club.

And each is aware of the stakes in play during the Mariners' critical homestand against Oakland, the very team ahead of them for the second American League Wild Card, and Houston, which sits atop the AL West. And both players are also aware that fate is out of their hands.

“It would be a little bit discouraging, in a way,” Graveman said of possibly being dealt, shortly after pitching a 1-2-3 eighth inning in a tie game before Jarred Kelenic scored from third on a walk-off wild pitch.

“You build relationships, and I think that's the biggest thing that people don't understand in this game is ... once those relationships are built, and really invested in, it's always hard -- any relationship in life, when you had to leave it.

“But right now, like I said, the goal of the whole group is, we're here. We're trying to win games for the Mariners. We've put in a lot of time and energy to try to win games here. And like I told [general manager] Jerry [Dipoto] at the beginning [of the season], my goal when I put on this uniform is to get this team to the playoffs, and I'll do whatever possible to continue to do that.”

Graveman was part of a gritty bullpen effort that combined for 6 1/3 innings after Logan Gilbert -- the ace in the making who has been lights-out for much of his young career thus far -- was uncharacteristically chased in the third inning, when the A's offense forced him to throw 41 pitches. JT Chargois, Casey Sadler, Anthony Misiewicz, Drew Steckenrider, Paul Sewald and Graveman combined to give up just one hit from that point on, a 336-foot homer from Aramis Garcia in the seventh off Steckenrider that barely cleared the right-field fence.

Offensively, Saturday was a Haniger highlight reel. He crushed two homers and nearly had a third but instead settled for a 395-foot double. All three of his hits were to the deepest parts of the park in center and left-center, with his first homer barely clearing the glove of Ramón Laureano and landing among a raucous crowd in the T-Mobile ‘Pen.

He’s now hitting .309/.400/.647 (1.047 OPS) in 18 games in July and is as hot as ever, already just one homer shy of tying his career high of 26 set in 2018, when he was an All-Star. Speaking of '18, when asked about where the Mariners stand at this stage of the season -- a season-high seven games above .500 -- the 30-year-old likened this much younger group to the far more veteran one from three years ago, but in a different context.

“I'd say it feels a lot like ’18,” Haniger said. “We were in it. We were winning a lot of games. It feels very similar, and tonight, I mean, you can really feel the energy in the crowd, and I know we had a packed house and that was fun. It was awesome.”

That team occupied a postseason spot on Deadline Day, by one game, but it was surpassed by a scorching-hot Oakland team in the final 10 weeks. Coming short of October that year, in part, led to this multiyear rebuild. Now, three years later, Mariners management is in the precarious position of whether to buy, sell or -- the more likely outcome -- a combination of both.

FanGraphs' current playoff projections give the Mariners a measly 3.6% odds to reach October, compared to Oakland, which carries 46.8% odds. The Yankees (36.9%) and Blue Jays (28.4%), who are just behind in the hunt, have far higher projections than Seattle.

The Mariners’ clubhouse will eye roll at computer predictions, as it has all season, but the good teams are only going to get better in the coming days, and Seattle has clear roster needs for a right-handed bat and within the starting rotation. Their production at second base is among the lowest in baseball, and the outfield situation beyond Haniger has been bleak. Returning Kyle Lewis will help, but in the very best case, that would be late August at the earliest.

Adding to those voids could come at the cost of subtracting from their surplus. And it’s not just Haniger and Graveman who will be coveted. All contenders are seeking relievers at this time of year, and the Mariners’ misfit bullpen is full of them. But that relief corps is arguably the biggest reason why Seattle is in the hunt.

So, the one certainty in this upcoming week of uncertainty: It’ll be fascinating to follow.