14 Years After 116-Win Record, Mariners Ready to End Playoff Drought

LOS ANGELES — The King was on vacation when he heard the news, traveling with his family through Turkey, Austria and the Czech Republic.

"I texted Robinson Cano if it was true," Felix Hernandez says. "He texted back, 'Yes, it's true.'"

Prague, Hernandez says, is beautiful, "and a good place for shopping."

Perfect. Because Baltimore is a nice place to shop, too. While the Seattle ace was splurging, so too were his Mariners.

On slugger Nelson Cruz.

And now, as the most anticipated season in more than a decade lifts off in Seattle, these Mariners finally are in position to author some stories of their own for a change, instead of passively listening to the heroics of their 2001 predecessors.

Starter James Paxton was in eighth grade back then in Ladner, British Columbia, roughly a three-hour drive from Seattle.

"Depending on border traffic," he cautions, then adds: "Jamie Moyer was awesome. Ichiro was a ton of fun to watch.    

"I was watching all of those games, and I just remember every time I looked up, they were winning baseball games."

Moyer, Ichiro, Bret Boone, Mike Cameron…it's as if baseball time froze in Seattle after that '01 season, even though the '02 and '03 Mariners teams each won 93 games (where, oh where was the second wild card then?).

JEFF ZELEVANSKY/Associated Press

The '01 Mariners were dispatched from the American League Championship Series in a shockingly easy five games by the New York Yankees, and whenever area eighth-graders have looked up ever since, the Mariners too often weren't winning games.

Now, with the addition of Cruz (four years, $57 million), Robinson Cano (10 years, $240 million) and Hernandez (seven years, $175 million), and with talented young players like third baseman Kyle Seager, outfielder Dustin Ackley, catcher Mike Zunino and starters Taijuan Walker and Paxton in the sweet spots of their development, the Mariners are the trendy pick to win not only the division, but the AL pennant.

The season's early days have come with mixed results. As manager Lloyd McClendon says, the Mariners have to get their pitching straightened out.

Four times in their first nine games, their starting pitcher failed to make it past the fifth inning (Walker twice, Hisashi Iwakuma and Hernandez, when he slightly strained a quadriceps). Only three times did a starter work into the seventh (Hernandez, J.A. Happ and Paxton).

That's caused far too much bullpen usage, and mix in closer Fernando Rodney's ugly beginning, and the Mariners right now don't exactly appear a threat to match the '01 club's 20-5 start.

But there is too much talent, especially on the mound, for things not to settle down in Seattle.

And the early returns on Cruz have been terrific.

"Anytime you add a guy like that into the fold, it changes everything," Seager says. "It's changed the whole dynamic."

Though he started 2-for-18, Cruz now has homered in five consecutive games. That's the slugger, who led the majors with 40 homers last year while swinging for the Orioles, that the Mariners paid for.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Already, with Cruz batting behind him in the No. 4 slot, Cano says it has been a game-changer.

"I'm seeing more strikes," Cano says. "You know what kind of player he is. You know what kind of hitter he is.

"They don't want to put another guy on base for him. If they're going to face him, they want to do it with the bases empty."

Those times will be rare once Cano heats up—though a rare mental error Wednesday added to his early troubles when he started trotting home from third base following a walk, thinking the bases were loaded. They weren't and by the time he realized, he was picked off of third.

Through his first nine games, Cano is hitting just .211 with a homer and three RBI. But McClendon points out that the All-Star second baseman has yet to catch a break, scalding balls that are finding rivals' gloves.

Tuesday night in Dodger Stadium provided another glimpse of what this summer could be for Seattle when Cano and Cruz smashed back-to-back homers for the first time. Seattle led for most of the game, only to see it get away via Rodney's meltdown.

To a man, though, the Mariners believe that the pieces all are in place. And Cruz's past several days only stoke that belief.

"Everybody's been very friendly since day one," says Cruz, who already was close with Cano—one of his chief recruiters last winter—when he signed in Seattle. "I feel at home."

That's no easy task given that this is Cruz's third team in three years (Rangers in 2013, Orioles in 2014 and now Seattle).

It's also an accomplishment given the fact that the Mariners struck a deal with Cruz two winters ago that was much cheaper (one year, roughly $7.5 million, plus a club option for 2015 for roughly $9 million), but Mariners ownership rejected it while trying to assess the fallout from Cruz's 50-game suspension for ties to Biogenesis in '13.

Nevertheless, there were no hard feelings on the part of Cruz, who wound up playing for the Orioles last summer on what essentially was a make-good, one-year, $8 million deal.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

"This is a business, and I understand that part of the game," Cruz tells Bleacher Report. "I'm here now. I'm happy. I have a place to call home for four years."

And, presumably, a place he can win for the next four years.

"Last year we came close," Hernandez says. "I think we've got the right pieces here now. Starting pitching. Bullpen. Offensive pieces. And great chemistry."

Ask Hernandez—who has pitched through a decade's worth of mostly lean years, with one more Cy Young (2010) than playoff appearances on his resume—to list his favorite aspect of this year's club and he doesn't hesitate.

"We are having fun, like a family," he says. "We're real close. Nobody is more [important] than anybody else here."

"We don't have heroes," Cano says. "We have guys who want to win."

Spoken like true team leaders, to be sure. But for the Mariners to live up to all of the expectations, some heroes will have to emerge over these next six months. And three of their names are Cano, Cruz and Hernandez.

That happens, and there is every chance that these Mariners will experience some of the glory of their '01 predecessors, if not that staggering victory total.

"That's something you have to admire, winning 116 games," Cano says. "In this day, winning 90 games puts you in the playoffs."

Indeed. No team has won 100 games in the past three seasons—the longest such stretch, according to Sports Illustrated, since baseball moved to a 162-game schedule in 1961. And while 17 teams won 100 or more from 1997-2005, only three teams have in the nine seasons since then.

Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

Last year's World Series was contested between two clubs that didn't even win 90 games (the Royals were 89-73, the Giants were 88-74).

"To win 116 games, that's a dream come true as a player," Cano marvels. "I bet you most of the guys on that team hit over .290, and I bet every starter won at least 15 games."

Cano is close. Four regulars from that team batted over .300: Ichiro Suzuki (.350), Bret Boone (.331), Edgar Martinez (.306) and John Olerud (.302). Four of the five starting pitchers won 15 or more: Moyer (20-6), Freddy Garcia (18-6), Paul Abbott (17-4) and Aaron Sele (15-5).

The game is different now, but the possibilities that arrive with each spring are not. And for these Mariners, for the first time in a very long time, the sweet month of October beckons again. 

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. 

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