The 2001 Seattle Mariners may be the most famous forgotten team in MLB history. With 116 wins, how is that possible? The record wins, the roster, and what happened next all add to the legend of the best team that no one remembers. Let’s go back in time 25 years…
Monday, August 24 at 9:40p – Zack Wheeler v Logan Gilbert (R)
T-Mobile Park – Seattle, WA
Tuesday, August 25 at 9:40p – Aaron Nola v George Kirby (R)
Wednesday, August 26 at 4:10p – Jesus Luzardo v TBD
Who Was on That Team?
Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson…they were all gone by the time the 2001 team was assembled.1 Instead, this was the dawning of the age of Ichiro. The Mariners had won the bidding for Ichiro Suzuki with a $13m offer to his Japanese team, the Orix BlueWave. Despite crushing the Nippon Professional League, teams were still worried that his skill and size wouldn’t translate to MLB. LOL! He ended up winning Rookie of the Year, AL MVP, a Gold Glove, and a Silver Slugger award. He became the first person in over 50 years (Jackie Robinson) to lead the league in average (.350) and stolen bases (56).
Shockingly, Ichiro didn’t even lead the team in WAR, that honor would go to Bret Boone at 8.8. Calling this shocking is an understatement. Boone had been a decidedly average at best second baseman recently, with Seattle being his 4th team in 4 seasons. To put his .331 average, 37 double, 37 HR, 141 RBI season in context, over his full career at that point (parts of 9 seasons), he had only managed 5.5 WAR. Over his next 4 and final seasons, he would only accumulate 8.5. WTF?
Edgar Martinez and John Olerud were there hitting over .300 as usual. Mike Cameron added an .800+ OPS while playing a great CF. Carlos Guillen, Mark McLemore, and future Phillie David Bell rounded out the starters with great seasons.
Bell wasn’t the only future Phillies on this team. The rotation was led by 24 year old Freddy Garcia and 38 year old Jamie Moyer who finished 3rd and 4th respectively in Cy Young voting. Did I mention yet that this team was the brainchild of future Phillies World Series architect Pat Gillick? It shows.
The Wins
It was pretty clear in April that this team was special, or at least off to a hot start. Their 20-5 April is still the best start to a season ever and it simply didn’t let up. They went 20-7 in May including the start of a season best 15 game winning streak. It was the longest winning streak in baseball since the 1977 Royals won 16 in a row.
At the halfway point, the Mariners were 60-21 and officially chasing history. Technically, the most wins a team ever had in a season were the 1906 Chicago Cubs with 116. That’s considered the modern era and still the record, but second place was established just a few years earlier at 114 by the 1998 New York Yankees. Through 81 games, they were 61-20 and the Mariners were just a game off the pace. If you were wondering, those Cubs were only 57-24 through 81 games and would go 59-12 the rest of the way.
The rest of the season didn’t have any long streaks, just series win after series win. The season was interrupted by September 11th though and put a hold on a 5-game win streak. That streak got to 7 when baseball resumed, but then Seattle hit their longest skid of the season, 4 games, including their only sweep (Oakland). They tied the Yankees at 114 wins on October 4th then tied the Cubs with 116 wins two days later with one game to play.
With the Texas Rangers and old friend Alex Rodriguez in town for the final game of the season and the chance for sole possession of the single season wins record in their sights, the Mariners didn’t lay down. All of the regulars were in the lineup and played the full game. They went up 2-0, lost the lead, then tied things at 3 in the 4th inning. Edgar Martinez was picked off 2nd after a 1 out double in the next inning, but that was as close as they would come to scoring again. With 2 outs in the top of the 9th, the Rangers would go single, walk, single, to take the lead and hold on for the win, denying Seattle sole possession of history.
At 116 wins and only 46 losses, the Seattle Mariners just completed the best regular season of all time. The Oakland A’s finished with 102 wins and still lost the AL West by 14 games. Even with winning the final game of the season, the Ranger finished 43 games out of 1st place.
What Happened?
The playoff worries started immediately. The Cleveland Indians came to town and took Game 1, 5-0. They bounced back to win Game 2, 5-1, but things took a big turn in game 3. The 17-2 route was an absolute blood bath and put the team on an early brink. It took a late comeback in Game 4 to force Game 5 back in Seattle. Thankfully, ageless Jamie Moyer gave up only 1 run through 6 innings and it was a date with the Yankees in the ALCS.
Back in 1995, the Mariners won their division and qualified for the playoffs for the first time in their 18 year history. This led to a date with the Yankees in the 1st round. The Yankees won the first two games at home including a 15 inning Game 2. The Mariners fought back to win games 3 and 4 back in Seattle setting up a dramatic and ultimate Game 5. After taking the lead in the 11th inning, the Mariners went single, single, series-winning double by Edgar Martinez to make Mariners history. The Yankees didn’t forget.
By 2001, the Yankees were already fully into dynasty mode and won 95 games that year. The Mariners ran into a well oiled playoff machine and took the first two games on the road. Other than a 14-3 outburst in Game 3, Seattle was blindsided and lost 4 games to 1. The best regular season in baseball history was left to bleed out in the ALCS.
There was no more magic left in the bottle for the Mariners after that season. They would win 93 games the next two years, but ran into the Moneyball A’s in the AL West. It would be 21 years before Seattle would go back to the postseason and even longer before they would win a playoff series. They still have not reached the World Series.
Photo: Derral Chen from Los Angeles, U.S.A, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Jay Buhner was in his final season and played only 19 games ↩︎
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