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Mariners death watch: Fighting the 100 losses
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I'm not sure what has happened with the Mariners over the last couple of weeks.
Maybe's it's the reduced quality of play of our opponents, none of whom have anything left to play for. Maybe it finally sunk in that losing 100 games with a $100 million payroll would be the equivalent of getting your proposal shot down at halftime in front of a packed house (it happened, the video is brutal and the guy gets laughed at by the players). But whatever it is, the team has been playing some inspired ball.
Mostly, it's been Raul carrying the team like he's been trying to all season. But over the last couple of games, the whole team has been showing up, topped off by Adrian Beltre's insane last two games, in which he has eight hits, five for extra bases, including three bombs and six RBI, while hitting for the cycle yesterday. Ichiro hit .350 in August with 18 runs scored, and Raul had one of those months that players dream about, hitting .396 with seven homeruns and 32 RBI's. In other words, Raul had a better month than Kenji Johjima has had a season.
Two weeks ago, the M's looked like they would need a miracle, needing to go 15-17 over their final 32 games in order to avoid the 100 loss barrier. Since then, they've won six of seven and now just need a 9-16 finish to avoid triple digits. There's still a legitimate chance the team misses that plateau, but I'm putting my money on the M's picking up those nine wins.
Only time will tell if this team misses infamy by a slim margin. But if the team keeps playing like it has over the last week and a half, we may end up just being terrible, not historically terrible.
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