The Mariners weren’t supposed to be this bad on offense.  Oh sure, even the best offenses have their bad days here and there.  But, over the last 8 games, the Mariners have scored 9 runs, and won only one of those games.  That’s obviously not going to get the job done.

With this pitching staff at its healthiest, there was never going to be a “good” time to slump offensively.  But, with how injured they are now, we all needed them to be abnormally productive offensively.  For this team to contend, the offense has to carry the load; we always knew that.  It was never going to make the Mariners a championship contender – because, as we all know, Pitching Wins Championships – but there have been plenty of teams throughout the years who have gotten pretty far on offense alone.  So, they better fucking snap out of it in a hurry!

Rob Whalen became the 12th different starting pitcher for the Mariners yesterday.  Like most of these guys, he ran into a big inning early, hung around, until they got to him again late in his appearance.  He went 5.1 innings, giving up 5 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks, and 0 strikeouts.  Casey Lawrence went the rest of the way, giving up 1 run to help save the bullpen some stress.

On the plus side, James Paxton returns on Wednesday.  So, one of these AAA fucks can go back to Tacoma.

In weird Mariners transaction news, Chris Heston and Mike Freeman were both claimed by the Dodgers.  I’m sure, now that they’re Dodgers, they’ll fucking kick ass, so congratulations to them.

In weird Red Sox transaction news, the guy who just shut us out yesterday, going the full 9 innings and all that, was sent down to AAA after the game.  So, WAY TO GO Mariners!  You got shut out by a AAA pitcher!  I hope you feel good about yourselves.

The M’s will see if they can get shut out for the full 3-game series later this morning.  I’m betting there’s a pretty good chance of it!