We finished out the 2001 season with a win. A big win, as it denied the Mariners the all time record for number of wins in a season. As impressive as 116 wins is, I quite honestly don’t believe they deserved the all time record. The reason is that the 1906 Cubs who also have 116 wins did it much better, doing it in less games than the Mariners took to get 116. If the ’06 Cubs had played 162 wins, I’d say it’s a fair bet that they would have gotten to 120 wins, or given their percentage, possibly 125. Even if the Mariners had gotten 117, I don’t know if it would have meant as much. For me, it would have been one of those asterisk awards.
Raffy got a home run, his 47th, and combined with Arod’s 53, they had a total of 100 HR’s, which was really nice to see from the #3 & #5 hitters! Overall, there’s not a whole lot else to talk about for this game.
The only other story was the announced firing of Doug Melvin before the game. This came as a big surprise to me, and somewhat of a disappointment. I really liked Melvin, and I’m concerned that he’ll go elsewhere, and finish the job he started here with someone else’s team. :(