These are unfamiliar times for Mariner fans. With the team enjoying not only its sixth-ever playoff appearance, but also its first ever playoff bye, we are unmoored and untethered from ourselves. Into this space between our souls and terra firma we gratefully find the 2025 New York Mets; not the Mariners we deserve or the Mariners that we have, but the Mariners we need.

To discuss the Mets, and the Mariners, and how a century of intense analysis and study can sometimes boil down to one team simply having juice and the other being juiceless, David Roth of Defector Media re-joins the show.

How do the Mets, with a payroll approximately the size of the GDP of at least one of Trinidad or Tobago, post a 21-36 record in August and September? How do the Mariners, careening towards Yet Another Mariners Season into the season’s final weeks, become an unbeatable colossus? What does any of it mean? Does any of it mean anything?

Also, why stories matter in the Cal Vs. Judge MVP Race, and we ceremoniously conscript David into God’s Army of Mariner Fans for the remainder of the season.

We hope you are enjoying Podcast Week at the Light Bat. We’ll have one more episode Thursday or Friday to get you ready for the unthinkable: Mariner home playoff games.

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