Seattle Mariners Must Show Resiliency One Last Time

On April 23, the Seattle Mariners were on the verge of being swept by the Houston Astros and losing their ninth consecutive game in the process. The Mariners sat at 7-13 and weren't performing particularly well in any facet of the game. It was still early in the season, but it appeared that 2014 was going to be another long summer in Seattle.

Kyle Seager, who had a horrid start to the year, then hit a walk-off three-run home run to snap the losing streak. After the game, Lloyd McClendon said he wasn't concerned about his club, despite looking awful for most of April, via Greg Johns of MLB.com.

"Over the course of a 162-game schedule, nobody said it was going to be a bed of roses every day. We'll see. I like my team, I still like my team and I think we'll be OK."

McClendon turned out to be right, as Seager would go on to make the All-Star team and the Mariners would go 10 games above .500 in May and June to firmly establish themselves in the wild-card race.

That wasn't the only time the 2014 Mariners have bounced back from a rough stretch, as they have shown resiliency throughout the year.

Seattle navigated around a five-game losing streak in June to go 18-10 during the month. Just before the All-Star break, the Mariners took two out of three in a key series against the Oakland Athletics after losing five out of seven to the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins.

Even more recently, the Mariners put up a crazy five-run rally in the ninth inning to begin a sweep of the Boston Red Sox after losing an ugly series to the Philadelphia Phillies.

Every time it looked like the Mariners would slide out of the race, they responded with a big win or hot streak. With 10 games left in the season, it's time for Seattle to show that resiliency one last time.

The Mariners have not been playing well as of late, going 4-6 over their last 10 games. That includes dropping series against the fourth-place Astros and the Athletics, who can't seem to beat anyone at the moment.

Despite the poor run of play, the Mariners are well within striking distance of both wild-card spots. Seattle trails the slumping A's by only one game and the Kansas City Royals by a game and a half.

The Mariners have to be better than 4-6 over the final 10 games to make the postseason. It would have been easy to see the team fade after the disappointing series loss to Oakland, but Seattle split four games with the Los Angeles Angels and now must find a way to get seven or eight wins out of the final stretch.

That resilient characteristic was apparent Thursday night, as the Mariners used a three-run home run by Logan Morrison in the ninth inning to beat a team that resembled Triple-A Salt Lake more than Los Angeles. Everyone outside of Felix Hernandez performed poorly against a bunch of reserves, but Seattle found a way to win.

McClendon pointed out after the game that a win is a win, no matter how bad it looked, via Greg Beacham of The Associated Press:

Seattle will look to continue that this weekend in Houston. The Mariners need to sweep the Astros, as winning the final two series against the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles will be challenging.

The Astros are much improved and have won seven out of 16 games against Seattle this year. Still, a club worthy of the postseason needs to beat teams like Houston in critical situations.

Taijuan Walker needs to turn in the best start of his life Friday, and Hisashi Iwakuma needs to return to form on Sunday after struggling over his last five starts. Meanwhile, the Mariners will have to figure out how to scratch out enough offense against Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh, two very capable pitchers.

It looks like an uphill battle at the moment, but the Mariners have bounced back in tough situations all season. If they can do that one last time, Seattle will be celebrating a postseason berth for the first time in over a decade.