Seattle trailed by three runs. Twice. Came back. Twice. Left 19 men on base in the process. If you watched all three hours and sixteen minutes of this game you didn't enjoy baseball — you survived it.

Bryan Woo threw 53 pitches, gave up 9 hits, 4 home runs, and 7 earned runs. He was done after three innings. His team won 11-9. Somewhere in America there's a Little League coach using this box score to explain to a crying kid that anything is possible.

Six bullpen arms covered the next six innings. Jose Ferrer threw two scoreless. Matt Brash threw a clean eighth. Andres Munoz closed it. The offense scored in six different innings. Julio Rodriguez opened the game with a two-run homer and stole a base. Will Wilson hits a two-run homer in the second. Cole Young went 3-for-4 with a homer. Connor Joe came off the bench and tied it with a two-run single in the eighth. Leo Rivas came off the bench in the ninth and put Seattle ahead for good with a two-run single of his own.

Eight home runs in this game. Eight. Between the two teams it looked like a company softball tournament where both sides brought aluminum bats.

Seattle had 19 hits, scored 11 runs, and stranded 19 runners — they were simultaneously the best and worst version of themselves, like a restaurant with amazing food and no silverware. The Mariners trailed 7-4 after three. They trailed 9-7 after seven. They won 11-9. The whole game was built by people who weren't supposed to be the story — bench guys, middle relievers, the eighth and ninth hitters. Woo started this fire and an entire village showed up with buckets.

Quick scan of the AL West: Oakland and Texas are tied at 14-13. Seattle's a game and a half back. The Angels lost by eleven. And the Houston Astros — the team that owned this division like a landlord for the better part of a decade — are 10-18. Four and a half games out. Losing to the Yankees 8-3 on a Friday night. Houston at 10-18 is the sports equivalent of seeing your old boss working at a different company in a smaller office. You don't say anything. You just notice.

The division leader is one game over .500. If you're a Mariners fan, the good news is that first place has never been closer. The bad news is that first place has never meant less.

Tacoma won 3-2 on Saturday. Brennen Davis hit a solo homer. Colt Emerson hit a solo homer. Jhonathan Diaz made his second scoreless start of the year.

Davis is worth keeping an eye on. He was a top-100 prospect in the Cubs system not that long ago — the kind of name people put on lists and projected futures for. Injuries took all of that off the table. Now he's in Triple-A with the Mariners organization, hitting home runs in front of whatever crowd shows up in Tacoma on a Saturday night. That's a long way from being on a list. But it's also a long way from being done.

The parent club needed 19 hits, eight home runs from both sides, two separate three-run comebacks, and a pinch-hitter to win by two. Tacoma needed three runs. Sometimes the minor leagues look like the mature operation.

— Bobby Bunt