Is Seattle Stressed for Success?

The bigger the number of regular-season victories for the Seattle Mariners--it remained at 106 after Thursday’s 6-3 loss to the Angels before a sellout crowd of 44,768 in Safeco Field--the larger the beast becomes.

The New York Yankees’ American League record of 114 wins, set in 1998, is well within reach. The Chicago Cubs’ major league record of 116 wins, set in 1906, is not out of the question.

But as the Mariners thunder past milestones--they’re the eighth team in major league history to lead their division wire to wire, they haven’t lost three consecutive games or a series on the road all season, and they’ve had a double-digit lead in the American League West since May 11--could they be cultivating a playoff albatross with the wing span of a 747?

“It’s a monster record that will be hanging over our heads,” Seattle pitcher Paul Abbott said. “Because of that, we’re going to be the favorites going into the playoffs. We can’t avoid it.”

With such expectations comes a unique kind of pressure that the Mariners may not fully comprehend. It’s a pressure the Yankees almost succumbed to in 1998 after dominating the league during the regular season.

“As I look back at all the years we went into the postseason, I felt more pressure that year than any other year,” Yankee right fielder Paul O’Neill said in a recent interview with the Seattle Times.

“What you accomplished in the season, the numbers, that’s what stands out in everyone’s mind. But it doesn’t mean anything unless you win the World Series. It means you had a great year, but you can’t finish a great year without winning the World Series. In 1996, it was such a big thing to win the World Series. But in ‘98, it was just a relief.”

Yankee Manager Joe Torre sensed his team’s anxiety in Game 3 of the division series that October. Though New York led Texas, two games to none, the Yankees were pressing.

“We were tighter than a drum,” Torre recalled. “I had a meeting during the game. I called a handful of my players down in the runway behind the dugout and said, ‘We’re leading two games to none. You’re playing out there like someone has handcuffs on you. Go out and play the best you can. If it’s not good enough ... “‘

The Yankees beat the Rangers, then found themselves trailing the Indians, two games to one, in the league championship series. Orlando Hernandez came to the rescue, throwing a four-hit shutout, and the Yankees didn’t lose another game that season.

“I can remember stretching that day, thinking how scared we were that this thing could end this way, and in a short series, it can,” O’Neill said.

“That was really the first time it hit home that we were in trouble. We hadn’t played a game like that in months, and that’s the thing. You can’t play games in your mind to put yourself in that position when you’re 30 games up. It just doesn’t work.”

Seattle reliever Jeff Nelson, a key set-up man for the Yankees from 1996 to 2000, remembers how odd that feeling was, when anything less than a World Series title would have been viewed as a major disappointment.

“In hindsight, it’s true,” Nelson said. “When we trailed Cleveland, I remember thinking, ‘We won 114 games, we swept Texas, we can’t let this happen.’ The guys definitely put pressure on themselves.

“But I don’t think that pressure will get to this team. This is a veteran group with great pitching and no real weaknesses, a team that made it to the ALCS last year, and I don’t think Lou [Piniella, Seattle’s manager] is going to let that happen.”

How will he accomplish that?

“By putting it all on the Yankees,” Piniella joked Thursday. “We’ll make them the favorites.”

The concept is not far-fetched. The Yankees, after all, have won four of the last five World Series, and they’re running away with the AL East title.

“We’ve just got to keep playing the way we’ve played all year,” Mariner second baseman Bret Boone said. “People compare us to the 1998 Yankees, but until we finish the deal, until we win the World Series, we don’t have the right to be compared to them. ... They have the experience, the confidence. It’s like they own the place in October.

“We’ve had some success against them this season (6-3), but we know they’re the team to beat.”