Baseball's best playoff race kicked into high gear in July — and it all started with «the incident.» On July 19, the Seattle Mariners were 47-48 and in fourth place in the American League West — 10 games behind the division-leading Texas Rangers.
According to FanGraphs, their odds of winning the division stood at 2.5%. The Mariners had lost 6-3 at home to the Minnesota Twins that night — a game it looked like they'd win.
The Twins scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning on a passed ball with two outs and then added two more on a home run in the top of the ninth.
In the bottom of that inning, Jarred Kelenic struck out looking with two runners on base after a nine-pitch at-bat against Jhoan Duran that included fouling off fastballs of 103 and 104 mph.