Mariners: How does their schedule stack up to the other playoff hopefuls?

The Mariners finished off a sweep of Oakland, gaining two games on their nearest competitor not just within the division, but within the wild card race as well. It puts them just one game back of the Athletics and helps position the Mariners into a great spot with just 35 games remaining in the 2021 regular season.

The M’s are 69-58, 11 games over for the first time all year. Very few people thought that the Mariners would be ready to make any kind of a leap this year, especially with some of the injuries that they have faced. Losing James Paxton for the entire year, as well as Kyle Lewis for 90 games and counting is no easy thing to overcome. Yet here they are.

The Mariners strength of schedule will be incredibly important.

Wednesday is an off day for the Mariners as they travel back home in advance of playing the Royals and the Astros over their next seven games. So, what I wanted to do today was try and get a better handle on the rest of the season for the Mariners. Actually, not just the Mariners, but all the teams that are around them in the playoff race.

There are a handful of teams that are fighting for the remaining four playoff spots. I say four because the White Sox have all but wrapped up their division with a ten-game lead in the AL Central. That leaves Tampa, New York, Boston, Toronto, Houston, Oakland, and Seattle.

Seven teams fighting for four playoff spots. Tampa and Houston have decent leads in their divisions, but with a lot of games left against the two teams chasing each of them, it’s far from a certainty that they make it.

I want to take a look at the schedule that is remaining for each team, and see if there is anything that we can glean from them. Does someone have a much harder schedule than anyone else? Does any team have a particularly rough stretch? Or does someone have a run against teams that have pretty much given up on the 2021 season already? Let’s dive in and look at each teams remaining schedule. Thanks to the folks at Tankathon for a nice graphic on scheduling.