[nitpick]I would say that both of the games Cleveland won were pretty bad for the Ms. Getting shut out in Game 1, going 6 for 31 at the plate with 12 strikeouts, 2 walks and 10 men left on base is pretty bad. Esepcially when you have 18-6, 3.05 Garcia throwing against 14-12, 4.09 Colon. The 17-2 Game 3, of course, speaks for itself.[/nitpick]
I can’t say the Mariners played badly last night, but that the Yankees played even better.
Looks like it’ll be Yankees and Diamondbacks, doesn’t it?
The Mariners played pretty badly tonight. I don’t care how “mediocre” you think the three time defending World Champion Yankees are, you gotta play better than that to beat them.
Pride goeth before a fall: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=71211
Sorry, but I can’t help but feel that this is a little karmic. Amazingly, this is the EXACT SAME THING that happened with the Detroit Lions, so arrogantly crowing about being better without Barry Sanders. Well, guess what, they didn’t win the championship either…and I don’t have to tell you where they are now.
And look who’s going to the World Series…the Yankess. Highest payroll in the bigs for years. Money matters, folks.
Nobody objects to this statement? My understanding is that they tied the number of wins of the 1909 Cubs (a great feat to be sure), but in a season that is 18 games longer. In 1909, the Mariners would have been 18 games behind the best record.
The Tribe would’ve had a better time against the Yanks. I really thought the Indians would beat Seattle once they had them at 2-1 in the first round of playoffs.
You’re almost right. It was the 1906 Cubs, and they played 10 fewer games, not 18. (The season was actually 154 games, but I guess they had two games rained out or called for darkness they never made up.) They went 116-36, while the Mariners went 116-46; that’s a five-game difference in the standings.
Actually the 1906 Cubs were 116-36-3. Since ties are infrequent in baseball, they aren’t figured into winning percentage. So, the Cubs had seven fewer games to win 116 than the Mariners.
That Cubs team scored 80 more runs than the next best team (although the Cubs played 2 extra games). And the Cubs surrenedered 89 fewer runs than the next best pitching staff. The Cubs’ staff ERA that year was 1.75, nevertheless they were beaten in the World Series by a White Sox team that had an ERA of only 2.13.
Seattle tied the record for the most wins, but the 1906 Cubs still have the better winning percentage.
Sheesh!
O.K., they have the best record since 1906. They still should have played better than that.
I’m not a statistics man, but I did note that of the top five winningest teams is history, only the Mariners did not go to to the World Series.
Cursed.
Thanks for the specifics. I guess I pulled those numbers out of my ass which doesn’t hold information as accurately as it used to.
In fairness, three of those teams only had to win an eight-team league and didn’t have to play a divisional series and a championship series. Pre-1969, the Mariners would have just gone straight to the big dance, and the Yankees would have been a distant third.
The expanded playoffs makes it harder for a team to translate a big season into a World series apperance. That said, the Mariners still played atrocious baseball in the ALCS, especially with the lumber. Maybe they would have been better off NOT swinging at pitches above their shoulders.