Wednesday, October 4, 2006

Mariners' season soured during 0-11 road trip
Yet they went 22-16 down stretch

JOHN HICKEY
P-I REPORTER

On Aug. 9, the Mariners were one game under .500 and 5 1/2 games out of
first place after completing a three-game sweep of Tampa Bay.

On Aug. 21, the Mariners were 12 games under .500 and 14 games out of
first place.

What happened? In short, the worst road trip in team history. It was an
11-game march through Texas, Oakland and Anaheim gone chaotically awry.
It was as if Lewis and Clark had headed out for the Pacific and failed
to make it out of Missouri.

At the end, the Mariners were no longer a factor in the pennant race.
If they'd won three of the 11 games -- not an impossible task -- they
would have finished at .500 for the year. If they'd won five, they'd
have remained in contention entering the season's final six weeks.

Instead, they were winless. Speechless, even.

"I don't know if there are words to describe what happened," closer
J.J. Putz said in reflecting on the Trip From Hell.

Putz, or lack of him, was part of the problem. In the 11 games, the
Mariners were able to get to Putz just once with the lead. He blew a
save in the 11th game and took that loss. But the issue was that the
Mariners trailed almost all the way in every game. They used Putz
midway through the trip down 11-1 just because he needed the work.

Of the Mariners, only manager Mike Hargrove had been through worse. In
Baltimore, his Orioles once lost 32 of their final 36 games. When the
Seattle trip started, the Mariners were in good shape. That 2002
Orioles team was a 95-game loser.

Curiously, Hargrove survived in Baltimore to manage one more year. He's
survived in Seattle, too. When things didn't improve with the Orioles,
he was out the next year. Anything less than a competitive performance
in 2007 likely will see an end to his time in Seattle.

The 0-11 trip was something of a watershed moment for the Mariners. It
was like watching a limbo competition -- how low can they go? It turned
out the Mariners could go no lower. They came back to win seven of
their next eight games even as their destination receded from sight.

The Mariners didn't enter the season with grandiose plans for a playoff
berth. If things turned right a dozen different ways, there was a
chance. But a .500 season seemed reasonable.

Things started going right in June and July. External things, like
defending division champion Los Angeles struggling. Things like
perennially pesky Oakland having trouble getting through a maze of
injuries.

When August started, the A's were only six games over .500, the Angels
just three. The Mariners were in third place, one game under .500 and 3
1/2 games out of first place. When the trip started in Texas, the
Mariners and Rangers were tied, 5 1/2 games out of first.

Joel Pineiro pitched five shutout innings in the opener and the
Mariners had a 2-0 lead. Texas got a three-spot against him in the
sixth, and seven consecutive men reached base in the seventh against
Pineiro and reliever Julio Mateo. A potential victory turned into an
8-2 loss.

The next night saw Texas score seven times in the first inning against
Gil Meche, and the implosion was on. The third loss was just 5-4, but
the Mariners were down 5-0 before rallying late. They gave up seven
runs a game, including 10 or more runs three times.

If the trip was a nightmare, the Mariners' reaction to it wasn't. It's
their performance in the final 38 games -- a 22-16 record -- that has
them believing they have turned the corner.

Adrian Beltre, Raul Ibanez and Richie Sexson enjoyed huge upswings in
the final six weeks. Ichiro Suzuki, who fell behind Texas' Michael
Young in the race for the most hits in the big leagues, rallied to
finish seven ahead.

The Mariners did most of that recovery work while losing Jarrod
Washburn from the starting rotation and Mateo, Mark Lowe and Rafael
Soriano from the bullpen because of injuries.

The final surge meant nothing because of the trip Willie Bloomquist
says kept the team from playing for something in September.

If the Mariners never see its like again, it'll be too soon.