The 2025 regular season draws to a close this Sunday, but Bases Covered Live features a pair of teams who still have plenty more to play for this year. The Seattle Mariners and L.A. Dodgers are both postseason-bound, though as we’ll go into, each have very different relationships with October baseball. Here are five things to know before the two go head-to-head on Sunday evening.
1. While we don't know all the final standings, we do know that both clubs will be playing postseason baseball. Two teams from separate leagues -- the Dodgers in the National League and the Mariners in the American League -- don't play each other often. The earliest they could meet after this weekend would be at the end of October in the Fall Classic itself.
2. We all know about the Dodgers’ postseason pedigree. The reigning World Series champions are looking to become the first team since the turn-of-the-century Yankees (who won the title in ’98, ’99 and 2000) to go back-to-back. They currently have eight World Series championships to their name as a franchise -- a ninth this year would bring them level with the Athletics and the Red Sox as the third most successful teams in baseball history.
3. The Mariners, on the other hand, cannot make the same boast. The only team in Major League Baseball who have never appeared in a World Series, they broke a postseason drought of 21 years back in 2022, but were eliminated by the Astros in the ALDS. They missed out last year, but ensured that another drought was not forthcoming with an impressive end-of-season run this time around. Only time will tell how far they can go.
4. If the M's are to have a chance of making it all the way, they’ll no doubt be looking to talismanic catcher Cal Raleigh -- fondly known by fans and teammates as Big Dumper -- to maintain his record-breaking form. On Wednesday night, he became just the seventh player in MLB history -- and the first primary catcher -- to hit 60 home runs in a single season.
Come Sunday, who knows? Aaron Judge’s American League record of 62 may well be under threat.
5. The Dodgers have their very own MVP candidate in the one and only Shohei Ohtani. We all know about his power with the bat -- this week he made it back-to-back 50 home run seasons -- but his return to the pitching mound has also been hugely successful. On Tuesday, he made the 100th start of his Major League career, and in that time, he has allowed an opponent batting average of just .202, good for the fifth-best of anyone in history over that span of time. Truly mind-blowing.