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The Baltimore Orioles have scored fewer runs than they have allowed - a fair bit fewer, in fact.  They've scored 585 and allowed 606; their run differential is worse than the Seattle Mariners' is.  However, their won-loss record is 76-60 and if the season ended today, the Orioles would be in the playoffs, fighting for the hardware.

At Bill James Online, one of the feature writers (Dave Fleming - no, not that Dave Fleming, M's fans) looks at this situation.  He analyzes all historical teams that are way, wayyyyy better than their run differential and finds something interesting:  it may not have been just luck that caused the clubs to outperform Pythag.  

Our Sabertistas' Creed quoth that when a team wins or loses fewer than its run differential suggests, then the one and only cause of these extra wins (losses) is the roll of the dice.  Which is precisely why it's interesting to see something suggestive in the history.  Of all division-era teams that finished much better than their run differential, look at how strongly they followed up in years to come:

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Year	Team	Finish	1 Year Later	2 Years Later	3 Years Later	4 Years Later
1970	Reds	1st	4th	1st, Lost WS	1st, Lost NLCS	2nd
1972	Mets	2nd	1st, Lost WS	5th	3rd	3rd
1984	Mets	2nd	2nd	1st, Won WS	2nd	1st, lost NLCS
1997	Giants	1st	2nd	2nd	1st, Lost NLDS	2nd
2004	Yankees	1st	1st, Lost ALDS	1st, Lost ALDS	2nd, Lost ALDS	3rd
2007	D'Backs	1st	2nd	5th	5th	1st, Lost NLCS
2008	Angels	1st	1st, Lost ALCS	3rd	2nd	3rd
2009	Mariners	3rd	4th	4th	4th (?)	n/a

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A glance at the table shows that this collection of teams is packed with ballclubs that were just getting really good - and that, in their first season rising to the top, they won lots of games that weren't yet quite supported by their runs gained and lost.  For example, take the Big Red Machine led by Johnny Bench and Pete Rose.  In 1970 they weren't all that overwhelming yet; their run differential was +775, -681.  But in 1970 they won 102 games.  Little Jeffy Clarke was on the scene for it; that ballclub had swagger.  In particular its catcher had swagger, not to mention 148 RBI.

No principle in baseball is absolute; various general principles weave across one another in a super-complex dance of cause and effect.  But it could be a general tendency that the first year a club starts believing in itself, it wins 92 games when its run differential suggested 82.  Sabermetricians examine the following years to see if a team is still outperforming Pythag, and they find "nope.  Not outperforming Pythag.  They only won 96 the next year and Pythag said 95!"  Perhaps Pythag catches up to the W/L, and not vice versa.

The plucky young 1972 Mets, in the table above, had Tom Seaver.

The plucky young 1984 Mets, in the table above, had Doc Gooden.

The plucky young 2012 Second Half Mariners, who are way outperforming Pythag since trading Ichiro, have Felix Hernandez.

Fleming doesn't claim that his study is airtight, not by a long shot, and I don't say that "rising young teams win some tight games" is to be taken as the gospel truth.  But the teams that were WAYYYYYY over Pythag did tend to win a lot in the next few years, so there might be some insight into the game of hardball there.

The M's, since they got dynamic, have been echo'ing this pattern to some degree.  It's an interesting camera angle on the evolution of these Mariners.

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