THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: Dad would have liked the M's chances this week

To truly grasp this week in front of us, you should have known my dad.

Among other things, he was a CPA to put food on the table and a world-class sports junkie for entertainment.

He was also a gambler, and the best card player I’ve ever known.

Dad had a memory that should have been studied by scientists, and when you marry that gift with professional accounting, well … he knew stuff.

And what he couldn’t prove as fact, he added by understanding people.

He could get into your mind before YOU could.

That brings us to the final regular-season week of the 2025 baseball season.

If Dad were still around, I’d let him write this column about the Mariners’ cruise to their first AL division championship in 24 years.

I know he’d be fascinated by the situation, with Seattle sitting three games ahead of Houston, each team with six games remaining (and the Mariners in possession of the head-to-head tiebreaker between the two teams).

In other words, a four-game lead with six to play.

TO MAKE the situation even sweeter, the M’s final half-dozen games are all at home — and the first series (starting tonight) brings Colorado to T-Mobile Park.

There is some delicious irony baked into this final homestand.

The Rockies are 45 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West and — yes, indeed — the defending World Series champions will follow the Rockies into Seattle for that last weekend of the regular season.

There is a possibility that neither the Dodgers nor the Mariners will have a thing riding on the final three games.

Except.

What about home-field tilt in the World Series?

The Dodgers are 88-68, the Mariners 87-69.

Stranger things have happened.

That brings my dad back into this discussion, at the intersection of numbers and people with plans.

My father loved the Giants from the day they moved west from the Polo Grounds.

Part of it was professional — he handled the income taxes for quite a few Bay Area athletes — but he was also a fan.

He knew the game, and he really knew the guys who played it.

Some combination of those hard-core numbers and a unique FEEL for how the teams would react led him to announce that the Giants could catch L.A. in the final week of the National League pennant race — despite a four-game deficit with seven left.

The Dodgers looked weary and out of gas, he said.

But could the Giants win enough that it would matter?

Turns out, it did.

The Giants only won four of their last seven, but the Dodgers kept losing.

The race, if you could call it that, wound up even. In those days, a tie was decided by a three-game playoff — and without torturing you with too many details, the Giants won it with a four-run rally in the ninth inning of the third game.

DAD’S PALS all won a few bucks on that comeback, and then on the playoff.

He was considered something of a guru in the matters of winning and losing.

Oh, how I wish he were around to share some wisdom on how the Mariners might finish this September charge.

I have some suspicions, simply from things I heard and filed away.

Would he be nervous about the Mariners tumbling into one of those skids where no one can drive in a run?

His verdict: No.

The pitching is too solid, to the point that you can likely assume five of the six starts will be somewhere between fine and outstanding.

What about taking the Rockies too lightly and getting burned?

Hmmm.

If the Mariners had a slim lead and had shown signs of frustration when a couple of games went the wrong, then yeah, I could imagine some nervous tummies in that clubhouse if Houston ran off three wins in a row.                                                                                           

But a four-game lead?

Reading my dad’s mind here, I could picture Seattle winning a fluke sort of game — just one — and it would be like holding serve in tennis.

You can take a deep breath, and let Cal hit one 450 feet with two on in the next game.

That insane finish that my dad predicted is memorable because it WAS insane.  

Most of the time, teams with leads have better players (especially pitchers) and they just go ahead and win.

Start debating whether the bye might hurt momentum

in the ALCS.

Relax.

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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.”