SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
October baseball begins in September this year with the first of Major League Baseball's playoff games tomorrow. It took each and every day of the 162-game season for some teams to punch their ticket to the postseason and for others to miss out altogether. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is here to preview the playoffs. Hey, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: So this is a fun field, and among other things, you have three teams in it that have never won the World Series.
SULLIVAN: Yeah. And in fact, one of them has never even appeared in the World Series. That's the Seattle Mariners, who joined Major League Baseball back in the 1970s. And Scott, I was in Seattle just the other weekend, and let me tell you, that town is bumping with excitement for the Mariners...
DETROW: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: ...People wearing M's gear out (ph) everywhere. And in fact, I think, just the moment that catches it, you can hear the excitement of the crowd in this clip of the moment they clinched their spot in the playoffs. That was last week.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: One pitch away.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Ball game.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: You can forget about next year. The Mariners are going to the playoffs.
SULLIVAN: And they're this excited because this is a franchise that until pretty recently had the longest postseason drought in the major four of North American sports. Now they have this genuinely very good team on the shoulders, especially of the incredible season of catcher Cal Raleigh, who just the other day became one of only seven players in Major League history to hit 60 home runs in a single season. They've just been one of the hottest teams in baseball in September, which is exactly the kind of momentum that you want to have going into the postseason.
DETROW: Hall of fame nickname as well, but we can talk more about that later.
SULLIVAN: (Laughter).
DETROW: What about the two other teams that have never won the World Series?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, well, you have the Milwaukee Brewers. They lost the World Series back in 1982, haven't returned. They have reached the playoffs more often than not in recent years, but they just have never been able to get over the hump. This is probably the best team they've had of late. You also have the San Diego Padres who last went to the World Series in 1998. And although they have won the World Series before, I'll shout out the Toronto Blue Jays, the top seed in the American League. They have not been to the fall classic since they won it back in '92 and '93, back-to-back years. I think it would be an amazing achievement for any of these teams, and all of them have the talent capability of pulling it off. To me, it just feels like a very wide-open year in total.
DETROW: So what about the obstacles, though, in the way of these teams that have never won a series?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest challenge on the NL side is probably the Philadelphia Phillies. They won 96 games. That was the second most in baseball behind the Brewers. They have great lineup, tons of power. They're also hot right now. You also, of course, have the two seasons - or the two teams, excuse me, that went to the World Series last season. That was the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Certainly, LA was the early favorite this year to repeat as champions. Both of them, I would say, underwhelmed over the course of the whole season, but they are still super talented, won a lot of games and definitely have a good shot in any series they have.
DETROW: That's the teams going to the playoffs. Now we have to talk about the New York Mets.
SULLIVAN: (Laughter) Yes. They are boldly refuting the age-old theory that money can buy you a World Series, Scott. They had the second highest payroll in baseball this year. And for the first couple of months of the season, I'll say, it looks like it was working, but then they hit a skid. They just kept sliding. And even at the very end, yesterday, all they needed was one measly little win against the Miami Marlins to punch their ticket. But even with everything on the line, they couldn't manage a win or even a single run. The vibes were terrible afterward in the locker room. I wasn't there, but I watched all these postgame interviews, and the players are all just, like, despondent, these thousand-yard stares. Here's Pete Alonso. He's their first baseman who admitted it was never on anyone's - it was never in anyone's mind on the team that they would end up missing the playoffs.
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PETE ALONSO: It's kind of beyond frustration. I think it's just straight up disappointing. And there's no other way to sugarcoat it and - super talented team. And the reality is, we fell short. I mean, we didn't even get talked over. We fell short.
DETROW: In the brief time we have left - this could fill out a whole show - but, you know, the Mets have had their share of crashes over the years. What specifically happened in 2025?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, I think even people involved in the organization can't figure out exactly how to explain it. The roster was great. They did have some injuries to their starting pitchers. That was a setback. But it's honestly hard to describe the scale of the underperformance. You had team owner Steve Cohen today tweet out an apology to fans and a promise to figure out what went wrong. He said, quote, "we are all feeling raw emotions today. I know how much time and effort you have put into this team. The result was unacceptable." But boy, what a tough pill to swallow - pay 340 million bucks just to sit at home and watch as the Yankees and the Phillies get to dance - oof (ph).
DETROW: Doesn't get what it used to, $340 million. That's NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thanks so much.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF JACK NORWORTH AND ALBERT VON TILZER SONG, "TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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