As May comes to a close, here are 3 reasons why the Mariners will make the playoffs... and 3 why they won't

Reason #3 the Mariners won't make the playoffs: There are some darn good teams in the AL

I left this one here, because it's sort of the one that the Mariners have little to no control over. You can't do much about how other teams play outside of playing them yourself, and that's more limited this year than it has been in a long time.

Take a look at the records of the current teams sitting in playoffs spots, as well as their projected records if they keep up this pace for the entire season.

Tampa Bay: 40-18 ( 112-50)
Texas: 35-20 (103-59)
Minnesota: 29-27 ( 84-78)
Baltimore: 35-21 (101-51)
New York: 34-24 (95-67)
Houston: 32-23 (94-68)

With how those teams are doing, and New York and Houston only set to get healthier, it's not going to be easy to make the playoffs. Of course, teams could fall or struggle as we get into the summer, especially with the AL East beating up on itself. Still, you are looking at a handful of teams set to push into the mid 90's or higher for one of those Wild Card spots. The Mariners have a negative -14 run differential, but 13 of that just came against the Yankees.

How confident would you have been about this team getting to 95 wins at the start of the season? I know a lot of us were hoping for something in the 92-96 range, but that was with a fair dash of optimism. If the Mariners can win about 62% of their remaining games, that should get them to 95 wins or so. It's not that farfetched, as it's important to remember that the Mariners won 65% of their games after the 29-39 start last year.

Things aren't going to be easy for the Mariners, things seldom are in baseball. They've got a long path ahead of them, but I'm still confident in this team getting into the low-mid 90s for wins. With over 100 games left, there is a lot of baseball remaining. HOWEVAHHHHH...