THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Nice run, but M's needed to do more

There’s emotional rollercoasters, and then there’s the ride that the Seattle Mariners have taken fans on this week.

Whether it’s Monday’s comeback win against the Houston Astros, or the following 24 hours, it was the best and worst of both worlds.

If that’s a good thing, we’ll soon see.

OFTEN TIMES, when teams find themselves behind 7-0 after three innings, it’s usually game over.

That wasn’t Monday’s series opener against Houston, when Dylan Moore launched a grand slam into the left field bleachers to give the team an 11-8 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning.

As things began to unravel in the inning, Houston pitcher Brooks Raley, who served up the grand slam, hit Mariner JP Crawford with a pitch. Both teams did a lot of yelling and talking, but no punches were thrown.

Friday afternoon, Raley was suspended three games and Astros manager Dusty Baker banned one game for Monday’s incident.

Considering that the Astros have dominated the Mariners in the past few years, it was good to see them show some fight, even if they didn’t result in punches.

The punch came a few hours later when the Mariners dealt relief pitchers Kendall Graveman and Rafael Montero to the Astros for infielder Abraham Toro and reliever Joe Smith.

Right in the middle of an already heated series between the teams.

Montero had been designated for assignment and was going to be leaving Seattle one way or another. Graveman had become a reliable piece as the Mariners made a move toward the American League Wild Card race, sitting 2 ½ games behind Oakland for the second wild card entering Friday’s game at Texas.

All Toro has done since joining the team is hit home runs, with one in each game of the series.

Moving Graveman wasn’t exactly met with the happiest of moods within the Mariners, with veterans Mitch Haniger and Kyle Seager also rumored to be on the move.

Seattle added left-handed pitcher Tyler Anderson and reliever Diego Castillo in separate moves a little later in the week.

Both were still Mariners after Friday’s trade deadline.

KEEP IN mind that the Mariners haven’t advanced to the playoffs since 2001, although they flirted with it in 2018, holding a 10-game lead in the AL Wild Card race over Oakland a few different times during that season.

In September of that year, the wheels fell off and the Mariners wound up finishing eight games behind the Athletics.

Whether or not that happens again remains to be seen.

Sure, the team has been one of the better teams in the league since sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays in June and winning some big series against the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees.

Then again, those teams made some moves in an effort to not only get to the playoffs, but win a few games should they do that.

Seattle, outside of a few moves, didn’t quite improve on its roster.

And who knows, maybe this is the team that can break that 20-year playoff drought.

Then again, it’s been unusually dry here in the northwest for a really, really long time.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for The Press. He can be reached by telephone at (208) 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JECdAPress.