July 24, 2011

Mariners Lose 15th-Straight Game: The Seattle Mariners have lost every game since July 6, a 15-game streak that set a franchise record. It's the worst losing streak in the majors since the Kansas City Royals lost 19 in a row in 2005. Next up: Three games in New York against the Yankees.

posted by rcade to baseball at 06:04 PM - 5 comments

It's really quite impressive, considering they were a .500 team before this streak started.

posted by grum@work at 06:45 PM on July 24, 2011

Wow, I hadn't even realized that they'd been on this losing streak (I live in Seattle, but grew up in NE and root for the Sox; the summer weather, more than baseball, is what Seattleites have been talking about, and I only listen to the Sox games on the radio and follow the AL East standings).

And while no one picked them to do much this year, I'd idly noticed the Mariners seemed to be sticking around in the West even a few weeks ago, and seemed to be tenaciously holding on. I didn't realize they were literally a .500 team before the losing streak.

On July 5th, the Mariners had won their 3rd in a row and were at 43-43, just 2.5 back in a knotted up AL West:

WESTWLPCTGBSTRK
LA Angels4641.529-Won 4
Texas4641.529-Won 2
Seattle4343.5002.5Won 3
Oakland3849.4378Lost 2

Now just shy of 3 weeks (and 15 atrocious games) later, the Mariners are in the cellar and basically have had their season effectively ended in mid-July.

WESTWLPCTGBSTRK
Texas5844.569-Lost 1
LA Angels5547.5393Won 1
Oakland4457.43613.5Lost 1
Seattle4358.42614.5Lost 15
Granted, 14.5 back is not insurmountable in July: I will be surprised if the AL West winner has even 90 wins this year (I suspect more like 88), and if the M's were to rattle off a 5 game win streak here, and a 4 game win streak there... they'd be sniffing at .500 come mid-September.

But realistically, teams do not lose 15 straight (and counting) if they have it in them to win their division by going 41-20 the rest of the way. I recall that the pressing need in the off-season was offense... and I also don't recall them doing much to address that. It shows.

Seattle is basically a replacement-level team outside of their pitching staff and a couple of guys in the field, and are literally dead last in the majors in runs, batting average, on base pct, and slugging pct. The Mariners are a top-5 team with their pitching... and literally the worst offensive team in the majors Even Ichiro is shitting up the place, and might post his first sub-.300 and non-200-hit season since he came to the Majors in 2001.

Sadly, the season is toast for them, and they should look to beef up for 2012 by sending some arms to contending teams at the trade deadline.

posted by hincandenza at 11:29 PM on July 24, 2011

Given Texas' recent winning streak, they really picked a poor time to lose 15 in a row. They dropped 12 games in the standings in the course of 3 weeks.

posted by yerfatma at 10:12 AM on July 25, 2011

The Yankees will give the Mariners a win. Bank on it.

posted by dyams at 01:23 PM on July 25, 2011

Told you.

posted by dyams at 04:28 PM on July 27, 2011

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