By Woodrow Carroll
Can a Major League Baseball franchise win 302 regular-season games over the course of three seasons and still have little to show for it? Depending on the view of the situation little to show is how many observers look upon the 2001, 2002, and 2003 Seattle Mariners’ seasons.
Since joining the Major League Baseball fraternity in 1977, the Mariners always have been in the American League West Division. White Sox fans may remember the 2000 edition of the Mariners who surprised the Sox with a three-game sweep in the playoffs. Seattle had little time to enjoy the upset of the Sox because the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees quickly ended the Mariners’ run.
The Mariners made the playoffs for the first time in 1995 following the strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series. After ousting the New York Yankees in the playoffs, the Mariners were knocked out by the Cleveland Indians. The Indians fell in six games to the Atlanta Braves in the World Series.
Major League Baseball made a brief stop in Seattle with the arrival of the Seattle Pilots in 1969. The stop was brief and the franchise went to Milwaukee the following year. Trivia buffs are you ready? Name the only player to wear both the Pilots and Mariners uniforms! The answer is Diego Segui who pitched both for the 1969 Pilots and the 1977 Mariners. The latter year Segui’s final season in MLB
With the addition of Ichiro Suzuki, the 2001 Mariners were unbeatable during the regular season. Seattle ended with a regular-season record of 116-46 to equal the 1906 Chicago Cubs for most regular-season victories.
As good as were the 2001 Mariners, the team struggled to get past the Indians to open the playoffs by taking the best-of-five game series, three games to two.
The Yankees were next! There the magical season ended for Seattle with the Yankees ousting the Mariners, four games to one.
The four seasons with the most victories in Mariners’ history? They were 2000-2003! The teams were 91-71 in 2000 followed by records of 116-46, 93-69, and 93-69.
As good as the Mariners were in 2002 and 2003, there were no playoff appearances.
Not wanting to be known as a ‘nattering nabob of negativism’ with regard to Mariners’ history, and with thanks to former vice president Spiro Agnew and speechwriter William Safire, the Seattle story has been a downer for some time.
Since the 2001 season, the Mariners have failed to reach postseason play in any form. No MLB, NBA, NFL, or NHL franchise has suffered a longer playoff drought than the Mariners. Seattle is the only Major League Baseball franchise never to have reached the World Series.
Since the great run in the early 2000s, the Mariners twice have lost more than 100 games in a season. That low water mark for Seattle was in both 2008 and 2010 when the Mariners ended regular seasons with 61-101 records.
• Now in their 44th year of existence, the Mariners took two of three games from the White Sox last weekend at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago. They entered this week with a 41-38 record as the season nears the midway point. If the Mariners are to make it to the playoffs, they will have to produce victories to overtake the Houston Astros and Oakland A’s in the AL West. Iff the Mariners have designs on a wild-card berth this season, it will take significant runs of victories.
The White Sox, who edged the Mariners, 7-5, Sunday to avoid being swept by Seattle in their three-game series, seek to recover from the recent downturn.
Several weeks back the Sox had the best record in the MLB. Seven defeats in nine games through Sunday, proved to be a reality check for the Sox. With the all-star game July 13, the White Sox have an opportunity to get healthy in 13 games against Minnesota, Detroit, and Baltimore prior to the all-star break.