One month into the MLB season and the Seattle Mariners have been far from impressive. A trendy pick to come out of the American League and win the World Series, the Mariners have yet to show the league they are a team to fear. Sitting in third place in the AL West, the Mariners have stumbled out of the gates to a 9-11 record and have shown fans only inconsistency in the face of sky-high expectations.
The Mariners haven’t made the playoffs since the 2001 season. They’ve never made it to the World Series and over the last six years have fielded some of the most offensively inept teams in the history of baseball. Despite that, the M’s are World Series favorites. Go figure.
However, the truth is this year is as promising as ever for the Mariners to make a deep playoff run. They came within one game of making the playoffs last year, added depth to the bench, and signed last years American League home run champion, Nelson Cruz.
So what’s kept the M’s from burning through the league?
The pop in the lineup has been there. The Mariners are tied for eighth in the MLB with 24 home runs. Nelson Cruz has certainly held up his end of the bargain, smacking 10 HR’s and 22 RBI’s through the first month.
The concern comes from the fact that the Mariners have only scored a total of 72 total runs this season. They rank in the bottom five in the league for runs scored, team batting average, and on-base percentage. Ranking near the bottom of the league in offense is nothing new for the Mariners but it does seem somewhat strange because to the casual fan, it appeared the M’s offense is greatly improved. But in fact, the long balls are simply distractions to the problems.
However, the offensive issues have taken a back seat to what we’ve seen from the starting pitching. Last season, the M’s pitchers gave up the fewest runs (554), earned runs (512), held the lowest team ERA (3.17), opponent batting average (.230), and the second lowest WHIP (1.17) in the AL.
Pitching was never the problem in 2014.
Through the first month of 2015, every Mariners starter outside of Felix Hernandez and J.A. Happ has an ERA above 6.61 and no other starter had a win. In the AL, the Mariners are tied for the sixth most in runs allowed (83), ninth in opponents batting average (.256) and rank eleventh in WHIP (1.36).
In summary, the Mariners can’t hit or pitch. They’re bad.
But, this team has plenty of time to right the ship, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t do just that.
Hisashi Iwakuma, who went down on April 25 with a lat strain, will return in a few weeks and give the team another quality starter. The young starting pitchers, Taijuan Walker and James Paxton both showed flashes of brilliance last season and have already begun to break out of their early season slumps.
The Mariners had the best bullpen in baseball last season and they’ve been hurt thus far by the starters inability to pitch deep into games. Once the starting pitching rounds back into form, there’s no reason to believe the bullpen won’t do the same.
The main concern, like in years past is the M’s hitting. The offense has been so bad for so long, you can’t expect anything. But this year feels different. Last year, the Mariners missed the playoffs by one game and wasted countless great pitching efforts throughout the seasons with a lack of run support. They only needed to slightly improve to get over the hump and be a 90-plus-win team. Nelson Cruz leads the MLB in home runs and RBI’s and gives the M’s the offense they’ve been searching for seemingly forever. Despite the slow start, this year feels different. This year doesn’t feel like the same old Mariners.