 After a 99-day impasse, the Major League Baseball owners and players decided it was time to stop the bickering and let cooler heads prevail. Just in the nick of time for Seattle Mariner fans. Last we saw the Mariners they were two games shy of a post-season berth after a 90-72 record.
READY TO PICK UP WHERE THEY LEFT OFF
The Mariners front office is determined to quickly recapture the magic that engulfed the City of Seattle during that magical weekend. No other organization in baseball was dredging the lock more than the Mariners. With the lock-out lifted Mariners  President of Baseball Operations and General Manager   Jerry Dipoto says the front office will quickly get back to business.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Mariners players can now start reporting to the team’s complex this weekend with a mandatory reporting date of March 14.
MLB will resume spring training games on March 17. Teams will play a full 162 game schedule.
The Mariner’s regular season will start on April 7 in Minneapolis instead of March 31 in Seattle, as originally scheduled. The missed games from the early portion of the season will be made up by adding three days to the end of the season and sprinkling in doubleheaders.
All doubleheaders will be nine innings in length. One of the results of the agreed-upon rules during the lockout. Also gone is a ghost runner on second base in extra-inning games
Seattle’s home opener will be on April 15 at T-Mobile Park against the Houston Astros. The three-game series against their American League West rival starts a nine-game, 10-day homestand.
SPEAKING OF PLAYOFFS
The October field has been expanded from 10 teams (five in each league) to 12 teams (six in each league), with three division winners and three Wild Card teams in each league. The top two division winners in each league will receive byes to the Division Series. The other four teams in each league will play best-of-three series in what will be called the Wild Card round, with the higher seed hosting all three games.
There will be no re-seeding for Division Series. The No. 1 seed plays the winner of the 4-5 series, and the No. 2 seed plays the winner of 3-6.
There will no longer be play-in games (aka Game 163) to decide playoff spots. All playoff spots will be determined through tiebreaker formulas
