The Seattle Mariners have completed 43 seasons of professional baseball in the West division of Major League Baseball 's American League since they began play in 1977. From April 6, 1977 until June 27, 1999, the Mariners played in Seattle's Kingdome. Since July 15, 1999, the Mariners have played at T-Mobile Park. Their name reflects their home city's coastal and marine culture. An expansion team created as a result of a breach of contract lawsuit involving the Seattle Pilots' 1969 departure after just one year in Seattle, the Mariners finished each of their first 14 seasons with a losing record. However, after Seattle won its division and a playoff berthfor the first time in, they have enjoyed sporadic success, making the playoffs three more times but never advancing beyond the American League Championship Series ; the team has not been to the playoffs since 2001, when they tied an MLB record winning 116 games; this is the longest current drought in MLB and in all of the major leagueNorth American sports.
The following table describes the Mariners' MLB win–loss record by decade.
Decade
Wins
Losses
Pct
1970s
187
297
.386
1980s
673
893
.430
1990s
764
787
.493
2000s
837
783
.517
2010s
758
862
.468
All-time
3151
3528
These statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com's Seattle Mariners History & Encyclopedia, and are current as of October 3, 2019
Footnotes
In both the 1980 and 1981 seasons, the Mariners played one game which ended in a tie not reflected in the above table. On June 2, 1980, in Detroit, the Mariners were tied with the Tigers 3–3 after 13 innings; the game was suspended due to rain and never replayed because neither team was in playoff contention. On April 29, 1981, the Mariners played an 8 inning game with the Minnesota Twins that was called due to rain with the score tied at 7; it was also never replayed. In 2007, the Major League Baseball Rules Committee announced that tied games would no longer be replayed from the start but instead suspended and resumed.
The 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike, which started on August 12, led to the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series. As a result of the abbreviated season, MLB did not officially award division championships. Although they spent the entire shortened season with a losing record, the Mariners held first place in their division before ten games until as late as May 25, when three of the four AL West teams were tied.
The team's 116 wins tied a major-league record initially held by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. However, the Mariners played ten more games than the 1906 Cubs.
