TORONTO — After conceding nine consecutive runs in a stunning loss to the Detroit Tigers, a song cruelly thumped through the Seattle Mariners’ clubhouse. It seemed, at the time, like a fitting nod to this fan base’s unending agony.

The same six words repeated:

I’m just a sucker for pain.

Consider where these Mariners were on Wednesday. With an opportunity to dispatch Detroit and advance to their first American League Championship Series since 2001, Dan Wilson’s team unexpectedly stalled. A previously dependable bullpen blew a 3-0 lead, surrendering nine hits and seven runs in less than four innings. Suddenly, Seattle’s season caromed toward a cliff, with Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal set to start a deciding Game 5.

To quote Clubber Lang:

“Prediction? Pain.”

After all, Mariners fans have endured plenty. They’ve waited 49 years to see their team, their city, in a World Series. They’ve watched a line of Hall of Famers languish on losing teams. They’ve seen four division titles and six playoff appearances peppered between impossible droughts. They’ve held onto hope, somehow, despite their history.

In the moment, those six words felt painfully poetic.

Now, after a 10-3 torching of the Toronto Blue Jays Monday? After taking a 2-0 lead in the ALCS?

The World Series is two wins away.

In the five days since Imagine Dragons rattled the road clubhouse at Comerica Park, the Mariners have made a series of massive statements. They outlasted Detroit (and Skubal) in an unforgettable 15-inning fight. They took two games from a rested Toronto, which went 54-27 at home in the regular season. They mercilessly roasted the Blue Jays’ bullpen and silenced a sold-out Rogers Centre on back-to-back nights.

After 15 emotional innings, plus a flight delay, they fileted the No. 1 seed in the American League.

“I think in these moments, these playoff moments, you can't be fatigued,” Mariners first baseman Josh Naylor said. “Every game matters. Every pitch matters. Every opportunity matters. You've got to be able to turn the page quick. You've got to be able to find a way to get energy, because you need to win.

“In the regular season, yeah, you have an extra-inning game, late-night travel, get to another place, could be cross-country, time-zone change, maybe fatigue can set in. But I think in the playoffs, you've got to be willing to find energy any way, any how, or that's an excuse. You don't want to have an excuse in these situations. These games are too important.”

Suddenly, the Mariners are playing — winning — important games.

The same Mariners who narrowly missed the playoffs in 2021, 2023 and 2024? Who ended a 21-year postseason drought, only to be swept by the hated Astros? Who went 2-7 and 3-6 in a pair of perilous late-season road trips? Who take your time and money and repay with only pain?

Sure, that was the Mariners.

It’s not anymore.

“I think our guys have proved over the course of the season to be very resilient,” manager Dan Wilson said Monday. “They're just kind of built that way, whether it's emotional or mental. They're just resilient and they bounce back. To get an emotional win at home like that and come back here on the road … these guys were ready to go, and they knew we had more business to take care of.”

In so many ways, business is booming. It’s booming for Seattle’s bats, which put 10 hits and a pair of three-run homers — one apiece by Julio Rodríguez and Jorge Polanco — on the reeling Blue Jays. It’s booming for Seattle’s bullpen, which has stacked 18 scoreless innings in its last two-plus games. It’s booming for Mariners first baseman (and new father) Naylor, who became the first Canadian to homer in his home country in the postseason as a visiting player.

It’s booming for Seattle’s sports bars and team shops, undoubtedly.

It’s booming for the fans who feared decades of pain would only, could only, precede more pain.

On Wednesday, the Mariners return for the first of three (or two) straight games in Seattle, with an opportunity to win the pennant at a sold-out T-Mobile Park.

Forget the pain. Forget the past. They no longer apply.

“We know what that atmosphere is going to be like,” Wilson said. “We're so excited to get out there. The fans really have been so tremendous. You can't thank them enough for the force that they have been at the ballpark and at home. So we're looking forward to getting back and feeling that energy again in the ballpark. We know we have work to do. These series take on a life of their own. We've got plenty of work to do and we’ve got to stay focused on where we're headed, and we know our fans will help us get there.”

They’re headed, it's hoped, somewhere they’ve never been before.

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