The first thing that hit me was the jersey incident — a 107.8 mph liner lodging in Gilbert's jersey, which is the kind of thing that sounds like it didn't happen.

Seattle fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, clawed back to a 4-3 lead, watched Andrés Muñoz give up a game-tying homer to Nick Kurtz in the top of the ninth, and then won it in the bottom of the ninth on singles from Raleigh, Rodríguez, and Naylor. The game lasted two hours and fifty-one minutes. It felt like it lasted a decade. Cal Raleigh went 3-for-5 with a homer. Julio went 2-for-5. Naylor went 3-for-5 with the walk-off single. 15,704 people saw it. That number is not a typo. 15,704 people in a building that holds forty-seven thousand watched the Mariners avoid being swept by the Athletics at home. And they were thrilled. That's the thing about being 11-15. You don't get to pick which wins to be happy about. You just get to be happy, briefly, and then you look at the standings and the feeling goes away.

Both teams had 9 hits. Both teams threw 151 pitches. Neither team made an error. The Athletics and the Mariners played the exact same game tonight. The only difference was that Seattle scored one more run, and that difference is what people will point to as evidence that this team is "turning a corner." The Mariners are 11-15. The Athletics are 13-12. Oakland won the series two games to one. But Josh Naylor singled home Cal Raleigh in the ninth and everyone went home feeling like something had changed. Maybe it did. A 107.8 mph line drive lodged itself inside Logan Gilbert's jersey in the first inning and the umpires had to figure out what to do about a ball that was technically caught by a man's clothing. Gilbert stayed in the game. He gave up three runs anyway. Later he said he had a bruise on his stomach and a cut on his left hand. Baseball is a sport where a ball can disappear inside your shirt and the only thing anyone asks is whether you can still pitch.

Brennen Davis went deep for a grand slam and drove in five of Tacoma's seven runs in a 9-7 loss to Oklahoma City. He did everything a person can do and the math still didn't work.

Tacoma trailed Oklahoma City 9-2 after six innings. Then they scored five unanswered runs and lost 9-7. If you are a Mariners fan you are already familiar with the feeling of watching a team almost come all the way back and then not quite do it. The Rainiers are running the same playbook. The big league club actually completed the comeback tonight. The farm club did not. One of them will look like foreshadowing later. We just don't know which one yet.

The AL West standings have Oakland in first place. The Athletics — the team that just lost to the Mariners on a walk-off single, the team that relocated to Sacramento then wandered back to the concept of Oakland — are sitting at 13-12, a half game up on Texas. The Mariners are 11-15, 2.5 back. Houston is last at 10-16. It's late April and nothing about this division makes sense yet.

Houston beat Cleveland 2-0 tonight and they're still in last place. The Astros are 10-16, three and a half games behind Oakland. The Angels lost to Toronto 4-2 and sit at 12-14. The Rangers appear to have beaten the Pirates 5-1, though the sources on that one were shaky enough that I'm not putting my hand on a Bible about it. Nobody's good. Nobody's terrible. Everyone's just sort of... present. The Mariners are 2.5 back and somehow that feels both dire and completely fixable, depending on what hour of the day you ask.

— Bobby Bunt