The Mariners and Rangers split a 4-game series over the weekend. Marco Gonzales continued his hot start to the season with 7 innings of shutout ball on Thursday as the M’s beat up on the Rangers 14-2. Friday night was a fun, extra innings adventure featuring Kikuchi’s first one-inning start of his MLB career. Justus Sheffield came in after that and looked predictably wild over 3 innings, giving up 2 runs. The game featured a blown save in the later innings, but the good guys manufactured a run in the 11th to win 5-4.

Then, the series took a disturbing turn over the weekend, as the Mariners lost both games, 15-1 and then 14-1. Mike Leake was trash, the rest of the bullpen was mediocre, and Dylan Moore was forced into an inning of work (giving up 4 runs in the process). Then, Erik Swanson had his first really bad outing of his young career, and once again the bullpen was mediocre (certainly not helped by 4 Mariners errors and a number of other shitty defensive plays).

Look, I just can’t get it up for this season. First of all, my schedule just doesn’t afford me the luxury to watch many games during the work week. So, when I’m confronted by a weekend like this – losing 29-2 combined – I mean, what do you want from me? I have no idea who half of these pitchers are. The defense is an absolute disaster across the board. And sure, the offense can go to pound town against weak pitching, but is easily shut down once opposed by real talent.

The Mariners are 18-13 and are the second wild card team as of April 29th, but we know how this season is going to end. I would wager there will be more months where the Mariners are under .500 than above .500, and right now I’m down 1 with 5 months to go! So, half-assed recaps are going to continue for the foreseeable future, at least until I can think of something remotely interesting to write about this team.