The Rays and the Mariners have deeper similarities than just being frequent trade partners, or the alternate timeline where the Mariners move to Tampa Bay before the miracle 1995 season. Both teams run on self-imposed spending limits and pride themselves on being pitching-forward, draft-and-develop organizations that love to take other teams’ trash and turn it into treasure. Also, both are currently scuffling along at about a .500 win pace, although they’ve gotten to that number in very different ways: the Rays, mired in the depths of a competitive AL East, have thrown in the towel on 2024; the Mariners, after the desperation move of firing their manager after a prolonged tumble through an AL West with all the toughness of a bag of wet doughnuts, are clinging to the last threads of their own ratty beach towel.
Mariners lose to their doppelgangers, 3-2, in feckless strikeout fest
