Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Mariners Yearbook: 2000

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

D.C. Lundberg takes a look back at the 2000 Seattle Mariners -- the first season after Ken Griffey Jr. was traded away, the first full season in Safeco Field, and their second trip to the American League Championship Series. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. And this time, it really is me. Welcome to Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on Mariner's podcast or any of the programs here on Tloppin.

Follow the show on Twitter at L-O-U-U-U-U-N-S-Skourner. Follow me on Twitter at D.C. underscore Lundberg, L-U-N-D-B-E-R-G for those scoring at home. Big, big thank you to John Miller for filling in for me yesterday while I was ailing a little bit. One more note at the close of Tuesday's show, I said that both the 1997 and 2000 seasons would be discussed on the next episode. Obviously, we didn't discuss anything yesterday of the sort. but I also decided to stretch the stroll-down memory lane into next week as well, so 97 and 2000 will get their own episodes. Today we're going to look at 2000.

Recapping 1999 just a little bit, it was something of a disappointing season, which ended 79 and 83, with a third-place finish in the American League West. In the ensuing off-season, Russ Davis left as a free agent after four seasons in which he did not live up to his potential offensively or defensively. And of course, on February 10th, 2000, Ken Griffey Jr. was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. In return, the Mariners got centerfielder Mike Cameron, pitcher Brett Tomko, and two minor leaguers.

In addition, the Mariners signed Free Agent First Baseman John Olerud, outfielder Stan Javier, second baseman outfielder Mark McLemore, starting pitcher Aaron Seeley, and relief pitchers Arthur Rhodes and Kazuahiro Sasaki. Sasaki and returning closer Jose Mesa were in something of a battle for the closer's role, in spring training and somewhat early in this season, with Sasaki pretty quickly emerging as the far superior pitcher. In addition to the roster changes, this was the first season in which the M's played full time in Safeco Field,

having moved there from the kingdom after the All-Star break the year before. On March 26, 2000, 20 years ago to this day, the kingdom was imploded, and years' worth of memories were reduced to rubble in mere seconds. I remember exactly where I was when that happened. I was 15 years old. I was watching the TV coverage at my friend's house, and I must admit that I did cry a little when the dome came down.

I've always been a sentimental fool. I do miss that dump sorely. I spent many, many fun afternoons and evenings there watching the Mariners, and of course the Orioles when they were in town, and I was sorry to see it go. I still miss it. I have the TV coverage of the implosion on videotape. I've rewatched it only once, and to this day I just can't watch it anymore.

It's too sad. Anyways, the 2000 season began against the Boston Red Sox in Safeco Field on Tuesday, April 4th, in front of a national audience on ESPN. The final score was 2-0 in favor of the Red Sox. Pedro Martinez pitched seven shutout innings, followed by former Mariner Derek Lowe closing out the final two frames. Jamie Moyer pitched okay for six and a third innings, but gave up two runs, which were more.

than enough for Pedro, who was at his peak at that time and wound up the season with a 1-7-4 ERA. The Mariners picked up the next two against Boston, however, to win the series 2 to 1. Then the Yankees came to town on April 7th. In the top of the eighth inning that day, Mike Cameron made what may have been the play of the year. Derek Jeter hit a long fly ball to center field. Cammy sprinted after it, and before the ball had a chance to sail over the fence for a home run, He leapt up onto the wall, reached over the fence, and brought it back, and received a lengthy standing ovation from the Mariners' routers.

Mike Cameron had huge shoes to fill in center field after Junior departed, but my gosh, did he put himself in the good graces of M's fans with that catch? If he hadn't been accepted already, this place certainly solidified his place as a fan favorite. I was at that game in the left field bleachers, and it remains one of my favorite mariner memories. That night after the game, 7-10 Cairo host New York Vinny extended the postgame show an extra hour because everyone was still

a buzz over the catch hours later and wanted to call in to talk about it. It was a really special moment. The M's ended April 13 and 10, but atop the AL West above the Angels who were 13 and 13. They continued at a similar pace through the first two-thirds of May, but still felt something was lacking, a true lead-off hitter. So what did they do? On May 19th, they signed as a free agent the best lead-off hitter in the history of major league baseball, Ricky Henderson. Henderson had been released by the Mets about a week prior. Ricky debuted with the M's that same day, pinch running for Jay Buehner in the top of the eighth inning against the Tampa Bay double-rays. Ricky saw most of the playing time in left field from there on out, moving Mark

McLemore, who had been splitting time and left with Stan Javier back to second base. David Bell had been at second base, and he was moved to third base. Carlos Guillen had been at third base, but it was pretty ineffective, especially with a glove, and he was moved to the bench as a backup infielder and pinch hitter. After Henderson's acquisition, the team began to play a little better around the beginning of June, and even reeled off seven straight victories late in the month. They took a 51 and 35 record into the All-Star break, three games ahead of Oakland, and five games ahead of Anaheim.

The Mariners sent three representatives to Atlanta for the Midsummer Classic, Edgar Martinez, Alex Rodriguez, and Aaron Seeley. Edgar took part in the home run derby as well, but only hit two home runs in the first round and did not advance. And of course, the All-Star break seems like a logical place for the show to take a break, so we'll do that right after this word from Withings. Do you hate stepping on the scale? I know I do.

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25% off body composition scale. And with that word, we'll go to another commercial word and then resume talking about the 2000 Mariners. Hey, this is Taylor Blake Ward with Lockdown Angels, and you're listening to Locked On Mariners, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network. Here's your host, D.C. Lundberg. Thank you very much, Taylor, for taking us back. Go check him out on Locked on Angels right here on the Locked On podcast network.

As a matter of fact, tomorrow morning I will be on Locked on Angels. Taylor will be on two. However, it's going to be guest hosted by another Locked on host, Jason Hernandez, who ordinarily does the Anaheim Ducks program. Give it a listen. It's a good conversation. Right now, we're going to go back to talking about the 2000 Mariners, picking it up after the All-Star Break.

After, said All-Star Break, the Ems played somewhat inconsistent ball. The starting pitching was okay, but Jamie Moyer suffered through a very tough season in which his ERA was almost five and a half. His control wasn't as sharp as it normally was, and he was getting hit pretty hard as well. John Halama also didn't pitch all that well and also ended up with an ERA over five. The only starters to end this season with a sub-4 ERA were Freddie Garcia, who only pitched 21 ball games, but had a 391 ERA, and Gilmesh, who eventually was shut down because of arm trouble, started 15 games ending his season with a 378 ERA. Parts of the bullpen were a little better, namely new closer,

Kazahiro Sasaki. He saved 37 ball games with a 316 ERA. The man from whom he usurped the closer's role, Jose Mesa, had a very bad season. 536 ERA, way too many hits, too many walks, too many base runners. Still wanting to improve the offense, however, general manager Pat Gillick traded minor league pitcher Tom Davy, who had contributed to the team in 1999 but who was struggling this season in Tacoma, and John Mabry, who had lost his knack for pinch hitting,

to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Al Martin at the trading deadline. Martin's first game as a Mariner occurred on August 1st, 2000. At Safeco Field, the Red Sox scored four runs in the third inning. The Mariner scored two runs apiece in the fifth and sixth innings, and neither team scored again until Mike Cameron, who hadn't started the game, stepped up to the plate for the third time. He led off the bottom of the 19th against former Mariner Jeff Vissero, and I'm sure you know what happens next.

Cammy blasted a game-winning home run to send the Mariners Routers home happy at about 1.30 in the morning or something like that. Game time was five hours, 34 minutes, and this was a Tuesday. Al Martin played all three outfield positions and played a lot of right field in Jay Buneer's stead. Bowen's knee problems flared up again, and he played somewhat, sporadically in the second half of the season. Martin also spilled Ricky Henderson and left and Mike Cameron in center. Cameron's played right field occasionally as well. With Dan Wilson also hurt, Tom Lampkin and Joe Oliver saw significant time behind the dish, and the Mariners reacquired

Chris Widger from the Montreal Expos on August 8th for two players to be named later. Widger had not developed as the Expos hoped he would, either offensively or defensively, despite having a pretty good arm. The Mariners were as inconsistent as they were. all year in August, at one point winning five in a row and at another point losing eight in a row. They went 11 and 17 for the much but played much better in September,

amassing a 19 and 10 record for that month to end the season at 91 and 71, good enough for the American League wild card spot, a mere half game behind the Oakland Athletics, who finished 91 and 70, which includes one

rainout. In the division series, the Mariners faced the Chicago White Sox who had taken the Central Division. This was the first time a team other than the Cleveland Indians had won the Central Division in its short history. The first two games took place at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Game one went 10 innings, which the Mariners won 7 to 4. Edgar Martinez hit a two-run home run in the 10th,

immediately followed by a John Olerud blast. Both shots were off White Sox closer, Keith Folk. Paul Abbott won game two against Mike Sorotka, who would be involved in a controversial trade with the Blue Jays in the ensuing offseason known as Shouldergate. This wound up being his final Major League game. Back at Safeco Field for Game 3, both starting pitchers pitched very effectively, each allowing only one run. In the bottom of the 9th, with the score still tied one all,

John Olerud led off against submarine pitcher Kelly Wunch. He hit the ball back at Wunch, who threw the ball wildly to first base, allowing Olerud to advance the second. Oli was credited with a single and reached second base on Wunschus throwing error. Olerud was relieved on the base paths by Ricky Henderson. The socks then brought in their closer, Keith Fulk. The following hitter, Stan Javier, sacrifice bunted Henderson to third. David Bell then walked, bringing up Carlos Gien, who was pinch hitting for Joe Oliver.

With an 0-1 count, Lou Penella rolled the dice and put on the squeeze play. Guillen bunted the ball rather firmly to first base, firm enough that it was pretty much a line drive past the first baseman. Henderson scored from third base on the play, which was described by the late great Dave Nehouse as a beautiful bunt by Carlos Guillen. In reality, it was pretty poorly executed, but hey, it got the job done,

and since it was a series-winning play, it was beautiful. The Ms would then go on to face the dreaded Yankees in the American League Championship series, And while they did shut out the Bronx Bombers in Yankee Stadium in game one, no easy task, the rest of the series was pretty much all Yankees, aside from Game 5, which was the M's final victory of 2000 and the final game in Safeco Field that year. No one really talks about this 2000 squad, or the 1997 team for that matter, which I will speak about next week.

While they played inconsistent ball throughout much of the summer, they pull it together at the right time to make the playoffs, then sweep aside the White Sox to reach the ALCS. There wasn't much stopping the Yankees at that point in their history, but the M's played pretty poorly throughout most of that series being outscored 31 to 18 by the Evil Empire. Alex Rodriguez's final season in Seattle was a successful one. His 316, 420-606 slash line was accompanied by 41 home runs

and 132 runs batted in, which all came from the number three spot in the lineup, which was vacated by Ken Griffey Jr. Edgar Martinez continued to do Edgar Martinez things from the cleanup spot. His 145 RBI led the American League to go along with a slash line of 324, 423, 579. This was also his first and only 30-plus Homer season, finishing with an astonishing 37 to go along with 31 doubles. This was his only big league season in which he hit more home runs than double. doubles. Mike Cameron's first season was a mariner started off a little slowly at the dish, but he finished slashing 267, 365, 438. He matched 19 long balls and drove in 78 while

primarily batting second in the lineup. Defense was his calling card, though, and in that sense, he was certainly as advertised and made some spectacular plays in addition to the early season robbery of Derek Jeter. He had an infectious smile and winning personality. It was a for the pitching staff, as noted above. Jamie Moyer was very much unlike himself, and there were plenty of injuries, and the bullpen at times was just plain awful. Kaz Sasaki was a bright spot. Jose Pontiagua wound up pitching rather effectively, as did Arthur Rhodes and the late Robert

Ramsey. Two players had cups of coffee in September, which are worth noting for some statistical anomalies. Anthony Sanders, who had played three games with the Blue Jays in 1999, appeared in only one game for the M's on September 30th, 2000. He pinched for Mike Cameron in a 21 to 9 blowout in Anaheim and hit a double. Since this was his only at bat of the season, he ended it with a perfect 1,000 batting average. Brian Lesher, who had spent parts of three previous seasons in Oakland, played five games for the Merrittors in 2000. He had five bats, collected four hits, including a double and a home run, resulting in an 800 batting average and a slugging percentage of

1,400. One more piece of trivia, Brian Lesher, was the first Major League Baseball player born in Belgium. All in all, 2000 was a very good season for the Mariners. I hope you enjoyed this look back at it. Please remember to download, rate, and subscribe to this program on Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, or whichever podcasting app that you personally care to use. Follow the show on Twitter at LO underscore Mariners and me on Twitter at DC underscore Lundberg. Ask your smart device to play Locked-on MLB upon the conclusion of this program.

Tomorrow, the unforgettable, super special, once in a lifetime, 2001 season. Until tomorrow, have a good evening. This is Joey Martin. Join us tomorrow for the next edition of Locked-on Mariners, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network.