2009 MLB season in review: Seattle Mariners
The 2009 Seattle Mariners were one of those teams that seemed to fly under the radar of many national MLB fans. Not very much was expected of them, and they had four of their top players playing in final years of their contracts. Even though they added Ken Griffey Jr. this was a team built around good pitching and defense, and they were able to use that formula to put together a winning record. Down the stretch they traded away one of their expiring contract, Pitcher Jarrod Washburn, and even though e was having a fine season up to that point, he had an injury and was ineffective for the Detroit Tigers.
Their final record was 85-77, and that was good enough for third in the American League West. While they finished 12 games divisional champ, LA Angels, this is a team that spent 27 days in first place. They were even able to build a 3.5 game lead in early May. However, after dealing away Washburn they dropped as low as 13 games behind.
The Mariner offense was only able to score 640 runs which was last among all 14 American League teams. In his homecoming Ken Griffey Jr., hit just .214 with 19 home runs and as a team they hit just .258. They hit just 160 home runs, which was 11th best among the AL teams. Since this was a team built around their pitching their ace, Felix Hernandez scored 19 wins which was among the best in all of baseball in 2009. Their staff ERA was 3.87 and they recorded 1,043 strike outs compared to 534 walks.
In all 2,195,284 fans came out to Safeco Field to see Seattle Mariners home games. For their 81 games hosted there they averaged 27,102 fans, and they were able to sell 56.7% of their 2009 ticket inventory.
