THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Stranger things could happen in these playoffs

The baseball gods turned on the Mariners.

Don’t laugh.

I have seen thousands of MLB games (literally), and sometimes there is no other explanation.

I’ve watched games and pennants and World Series titles snatched away from teams who were in total command.

When you go back and look at the tape to see how the catastrophe happened, all you can say is: “Huh?”

Wednesday afternoon in Detroit, for instance, the Mariners were enjoying a trip on cruise control.

Bryce Miller was mixing his electric, 97 mile-per-hour fastball with a bit of spine-twisting off-speed stuff.

The Tigers had been toothless all series, and now they seemed ready to walk quietly into oblivion.

The ALDS was fun, fun, fun.

If someone had told you that Detroit would somehow crawl back into Game Four and send this rock fight back to Seattle for a deciding finale, you might have rolled your eyes.

And asked: “How?”

Tigers manager A.J. Hinch had hooked starter Casey Mize and was stuck in that awful spot where you’re already trailing after three innings, and yet you’ve got to wheel out half the staff.

A couple of those relievers are normally shelled, and your 3-0 deficit gets worse.

DID A.J. ask the baseball gods for help?

You’d think he’d be a poor candidate for assistance, since he was the manager of those cheating, garbage-can smashing Astros.

And served a suspension to prove it.

Nobody ever said the game was fair, though, and in the bottom of the fifth inning (likewise in the sixth), Mariner pitchers suddenly were facing the ’27 Yankees.

Maybe Dan Wilson could have stuck with Miller a bit longer, even after he’d been touched for a run.

He still looked good.

In the postseason, though, managers earn their paychecks by running one reliever after another into the chaos — always trying to get a favorable matchup.

Of course, the OTHER manager is doing the same with pinch-hitters, and halfway through every game, benches and bullpens are empty.

The Big Book of Baseball Brilliance no doubt contains passages that prove Wilson was making sensible moves, even while the Tigers were scoring seven runs in the fifth and sixth innings.

Hey, the players have to defy those baseball gods, too.

Lefty Gabe Speier, called upon to calm the waters in the fifth, had not given up a run in the playoffs — but the Tigers hammered everything he threw.

You knew something other-worldly was going on when Speier gave up a long home run to Riley Greene opening the sixth.

Yep, a left-handed hitter.

Wilson promptly got Speier out of the firing line, but Eduard Bazardo got battered, too.

These are bullpen stars who shut down games, and they were begging just for outs.

Any outs.

I’m thinking that the baseball gods are amused by the fact that the pivotal Game Five — Friday at T-Mobile Park — will feature Detroit superstar Tarik Skubal.

IT’S THE equivalent of a Sasquatch sighting when a team beats Skubal, the hulking Cy Young winner with a 2.21 ERA.

Yet the Mariners have won all three games this season that Skubal started for the Tigers.

Somehow.

It’s not like they’ve knocked him around, but they’ve made enough contact (and gotten enough pitching) to win each of Skubal’s starts.

Now they face the big lefty in the ALDS do-or-die game.

Yikes.

We have to assume that Skubal, a Seattle University alum, will be fizzing to pitch the game of his life on Friday.

Frightening, no?

On the other hand, Skubal wouldn’t be human if he didn’t worry, just a teeny bit, about this curse (or whatever) with the Mariners.

Part of Tarik’s psyche must think: “Can’t they give the ball to somebody else?

“What if I have to face the national media and explain how I lost to these guys four times?”

Let’s be honest.

After four innings Wednesday afternoon, Skubal had to assume his season was over.

The Mariners looked every inch like a team that would give nothing back, and soon would be celebrating right there at Comerica Park.

Now, almost out of nowhere, the baseball gods have tapped Skubal on the shoulder.

“Surprise, you’re pitching Friday!”

So, is he excited?

Nervous?

One thing we know for sure.

He’s damn good.

But the baseball gods are weird, man.

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On."