By Kirby Arnold
Herald Writer
SEATTLE — For two days the Seattle Mariners faced not only elimination from baseball’s postseason, but questions about the validity of their 116-victory regular season.
For two days they didn’t listen to any of it, and instead worked to prove that nobody should count them out until they truly are finished.
The Mariners, embarrassed on Saturday in a 15-run defeat that put them within a loss of ending their season, won their second straight game over the Cleveland Indians with a 3-1 victory Monday in the fifth game of the American League Division Series at Safeco Field.
It clinched the best-of-five series 3-2 and advanced the Mariners into the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees, who defeated Seattle last year in the ALCS. The winner of that best-of-seven series will advance to where the Mariners have aimed all season.
"We’re one series away from going to where we want to go," second baseman Bret Boone said. "That’s the World Series."
After tying the 1906 Chicago Cubs’ regular-season record of 116 victories, the Mariners didn’t sail through the division series as many had expected. They lost two of the first three games to the Indians and faced elimination Sunday in Cleveland. They won that game 6-2, then rode the pitching of Jamie Moyer and the bullpen to clinch the series Monday.
Moyer held the Indians to one run and three hits in six innings, and relievers Jeff Nelson, Arthur Rhodes and Kazuhiro Sasaki allowed only one baserunner in the final three innings. Mark McLemore drove in the Mariners’ first two runs with a bases-loaded single in the second inning and Edgar Martinez drove in the other with a single in the seventh.
"Everybody in this room knew it would be tough," said Boone, standing in a clubhouse filled with players who quietly celebrated their victory without the traditional champagne-spraying wildness normally associated with such an accomplishment.
"With so many things going on in the world, maybe champagne toasts and champagne flying around in this room isn’t appropriate," catcher Dan Wilson said. "It’s nice to walk around here and give hugs and congratulate guys on the job they’ve done."
After all, there’s a lot more baseball to play.
The Mariners will begin the second round, the best-of-seven ALCS, at 1:20 p.m. Wednesday at Safeco Field. Game 2 will be at 5:20 p.m. Thursday at Safeco Field, with the next three at New York on Friday, Saturday and (if needed) Sunday. The series would return to Safeco Field for the sixth and seventh games, if needed, on Oct. 24 and 25.
The series winner will face the National League champion, either the Atlanta Braves or Arizona Diamondbacks, in the World Series, which begins Oct. 27 at the National League city.
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