The Seattle Mariners enter the finale of a crucial four-game series with the Texas Rangers on Monday at 52-54 and 1.5 games back of Texas in the mediocre American League West.

If the Mariners win, they can get the division deficit back to 0.5 games, and they can also keep Texas from achieving the season-long tiebreaker, for now.

If they are going to win, perhaps they can get some solid offensive performances from Cal Raleigh, Dominic Canzone and Cole Young, who have each homered off Rangers' starter Kumar Rocker.

For Young, it's been a season full of successes. After hitting just .211 last year and getting benched for most of September, he was left off the team's playoff roster entirely.

However, he came back this year determined, and at 22-years-old, he's hitting .255 with 13 homers, 48 RBIs and three stolen bases. He has 98 hits, has excelled in the clutch, and has moved around the order, even hitting leadoff on multiple occasions. 

As noted by Mariners PR, Young is on track to join some extremely rare organizational history as well:

"Young also leads AL second basemen and ranks T-4th among MLB second basemen (min. 50% G as 2B) with 3.1 Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-Reference) this season...he is on pace to join Ken Griffey Jr. (4x), Alex Rodriguez (3x), Julio Rodríguez (2x) and Ruppert Jones as Mariners to post a 3.0+ bWAR season at age-22 or younger."

Any time you can join that quartet in history, you're doing something right, and Young certainly is. He was a borderline All-Star, though he fell short of making the American League roster.

Between him and Colt Emerson, it appears that the Mariners' middle infield is going to be set for years to come. Emerson signed a long-term contract earlier this season. Young is under team control through 2031.

The Mariners and Rangers will finish out the series at 11:35 a.m. PT on Monday. While Rocker goes for Texas, the Mariners will send George Kirby to the mound.

Kirby is 9-1 in his career against Texas, and he's pitched to a 1.33 ERA. His nine wins against Texas are the most by one pitcher against one team since 2022 when he entered the league. Per Mariners PR, only Framber Valdez (A's) and Merrill Kelly (Rockies) have matched that.

The Mariners will head to Los Angeles to talk on the Dodgers after the series concludes.

The latest edition of the 'Refuse to Lose Territory' podcast, featuring Seattle Mariners Insider Shannon Drayer, is out now. You can listen here, or you can watch in the YouTube player below.

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