Tag Archives: Marco Gonzales

The Mariners Are On The Brink With Their Starting Rotation

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I don’t want to alarm anyone, or overlook all the awesome things the Mariners are doing as a team this year. But … this is just something to keep an eye on.

The unquestioned strength of the 2023 Mariners is its starting rotation. It’s interesting to think of what could’ve been had everyone stayed as healthy as they were in 2022, but there’s definitely an argument to be made that injuries to Robbie Ray and later Marco Gonzales actually made this rotation stronger.

We have no idea how Robbie would’ve responded after some late-season challenges last year; he is a former Cy Young Award winner, after all. There’s no reason why he couldn’t return to form. But, I think some skepticism is a little smart – and valid – and if you asked me who I would want right now to start an important game between Bryce Miller and a fully healthy Robbie Ray, I’d pick Miller and it’s not even close. As for Marco, he’s been on a clear downward trend since 2020; his stuff wasn’t even good enough to crack the playoff roster last year. Between an inexperienced and sometimes wild Woo or Gonzo, I think I’m taking Woo’s stuff and not looking back.

The thing is, while that’s fine in a hypothetical, in reality we’re talking about two rookie pitchers who have limits to how long they can pitch this season. They’re both skyrocketing beyond their career highs in innings. The short IL stint for Woo will help, but just think where we were a week ago. We were staring down the barrel of a 6-man rotation, with the addition of another impressive young arm in Emerson Hancock. An embarrassment of riches! Just as the offense is catching fire and pulling this team back into the playoff race. It was all so perfect.

It turns out, a little too perfect. Hancock’s last start got cut short after two innings, he came up lame with a shoulder issue, and now he not only finds himself on the IL, but the 60-day IL. His season is done. It speaks to a tragic long-term outlook – considering this is the third time he’s found himself with serious arm issues – and if you look at the way he throws a baseball, it just looks fucking painful. I imagine this won’t be his last time on the IL, and I’m seeing a bullpen role ultimately being his fate.

Okay, fine. Woo has returned and we’re back to our five best starters. We’ll see how it goes the rest of the way.

The thing that scares me is now we’re talking about the third season-ending injury to a valued starting pitcher. Four if you want to count Easton McGee (whose season was dashed after one spot start in Seattle), though I don’t know if I’d call him “valued”. Digging deeper into our depth, obviously Chris Flexen was a flop and was DFA’d. And, until this year, Taylor Dollard was an up-and-coming prospect who just got his feet wet in AAA before going down for the season after 3 starts. Who’s left? Darren McCaughan (of the 5.99 ERA in Tacoma, and underwhelming mop-up appearances with the Mariners) and Tommy Milone (of the 4.44 ERA in Tacoma, with two decent spot starts with the M’s spanning 9 total innings). That’s it. The cupboard is bare in AA; there aren’t any more flashy prospects waiting in the wings.

Now, I see that – as part of yesterday’s spate of roster moves – we picked up someone named Luke Weaver. He’s just flat out bad. He started all year for Cincinnati and sucked through and through with a near-7 ERA, averaging less than 5 innings per outing. It was pretty clear the Reds didn’t trust him, nor was he someone to be trusted, ultimately resulting in his release last week.

We’re told that he’s going to be a long reliever, and an occasional spot starter, and BOY HOWDY does that sound unappealing coming from him.

It’s weird that we’d choose Weaver over Milone or McCaughan, two guys in our system, whose stuff we’re familiar with. What do we know about Weaver? He’s got a good pitch mix, but just hasn’t unlocked his potential yet? He’s 30 years old! He is who we thought he was! Besides, is late August of a pennant chase the best time to build up a reclamation project? Can you even call someone a “reclamation project” if he’s never put together a full season of competence?

Here’s my concern: what if we lose another starter? That’s what I’m talking about when I say we’re on the brink. God forbid we lose one of our top three guys, but even if we lose Miller or Woo to injury, the dropoff is CONSIDERABLE. Again, the plus side is that it’s late August. A pisspoor fifth starter won’t ultimately be the reason we’d fail to miss the playoffs in that scenario. But, then again, the Mariners are where they’re at, and the margin for error is pretty thin. So, YEAH, a pisspoor fifth starter MIGHT ultimately be the reason we flame out! One bad game in the last week or two of the season might be the one game that costs us.

Hopefully, the offense is here to stay, and maybe they’d bail us out going forward. That’s what I have to cling to, anyway. The Rays have been bitten by the injury bug probably more than any contender, and yet they’ve still managed to stay in the thick of things. They’re an inspiration! Here’s to the Mariners being like the Rays (minus employing the alleged underage sexual assaulters).

Well, really, here’s to the Mariners not losing any more guys to injury. Let’s stay just the way we are from here on out!

Is Now The Right Time For The Mariners To Call Up Emerson Hancock?

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I always find August to be the most interesting time in a baseball season. It’s also often the most frustrating. When you hear about the “dog days of summer” in reference to baseball, this is the time that’s being referenced. Early-to-mid August through the end of the month; this three week (or so) stretch. You’re past the All Star Break, you’re past that stretch run in July where every game fells like life or death because of the impending trade deadline, and you’re a little bit beyond that deadline, where you see a little boost from whatever moves you ended up making (to either add to your big league club, or from minor leaguer call-ups after subtracting from your big league club).

It’s also, critically, before the stretch run in the month of September, where playoff spots are won or lost.

These are the hardest games. Everyone’s tired. Everyone’s at least a little banged up. The weather is fucking miserable. And, lord help you if the scheduling gods have thrust an extended road trip upon you.

I don’t know how to search for this – or if the information even exists to someone like me (without going through every single season and doing the math for 40+ years) – but anecdotally it feels like the Mariners fucking stink in the month of August. Like, more than most teams. I’m sure I’m way off base and we’d find them somewhere in the middle of the pack, but I think it’s actually a pretty safe assumption given how mediocre the Mariners have been for the duration of their history. Nevertheless, I always dread this stretch of August, because bad things always seem to happen.

Is it any coincidence that the greatest collapse in Mariners history – a 15-14 defeat in Cleveland in 2001, when we had a 14-2 lead going into the bottom of the 7th inning – happened right around this time (August 5th)? I will always believe that was a turning point in our 116-win season, that ultimately led to an unceremonious ouster in the ALCS.

Anyway, I find this particular stretch, in 2023, to be more interesting than almost any other in my time following the M’s. Obviously, we all know what’s happened so far this year. The Mariners were supposed to be playoff (and even divisional) contenders, they got off to an absolutely mediocre start, and have only in the last month and change clawed their way back to respectability. The job isn’t done yet – not by a long shot – but the Mariners are just now starting to resemble the team we all expected them to be.

It’s an interesting time because of what we did – or didn’t – do at the trade deadline. We kept our everyday lineup mostly intact. There were a couple of addition-by-subtraction moves in jettisoning Pollock and Wong, along with a couple of We’ll See additions of Canzone and Rojas (who, for now, are largely on the fringe of regular playing time, mixing in with the group we already had in place, rather than getting extended looks). What’s happened is what was obvious to everyone: the M’s were only going to start winning more often when the core guys started hitting more often.

But, maybe the most important thing is happening as we speak. We’re at a crossroads, so to speak, when it comes to the back of our rotation.

We lost Robbie Ray after his first start of the season. We lost Marco Gonzales at the end of May. We lost Chris Flexen to ineffectiveness. That, in turn, opened up two spots in the rotation that were filled by AA call-ups Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. As has been pointed out by the Seattle Times, among others, they’re both nearing their innings limits. Miller is at a combined 106 innings, after throwing for 133.2 last year. Woo is at a combined 99 innings, after throwing only 57 last year (he’s coming off of a major arm injury in 2021). I don’t know what the upper limit is for these two guys, but I get the sense it’s fast approaching. The Mariners are all about working guys up slowly, to hopefully prevent long-term damage, which is the right thing to do, but a bitter pill to swallow in a playoff chase.

The tough part is: there’s no veteran help coming anytime soon. Ray is out for the year. And we have no idea when Marco will be able to throw again; he very well also might be done. We have Tommy Milone – a Quad-A guy in Tacoma at the moment – and that’s pretty much it as far as guys with Major League experience.

Enter Emerson Hancock.

It’s not totally clear what the plan is at this point. We know that Woo was placed on the IL with a forearm strain, so probably Hancock is taking Woo’s spot for now. My hope is that the M’s are fudging the numbers a bit, and this is just an excuse to give Woo some healthy rest, without needing to make a more serious move to free up a spot on the active roster.

Assuming that’s the case, what’s the plan for when Woo returns? Are the Mariners going to move one of these young guys to the bullpen? Are they going to go to a 6-man rotation for the next few weeks/the rest of the season? Some combination of the two (a 6-man rotation, then convert one or two to the bullpen at season’s end)? Anything could be on the table.

My main questions for today are: is this the right move? Is it the right move for the Mariners? And is it the right move for Hancock’s professional baseball career?

Hancock was selected in the first round of the 2020 draft. He pitched most of 2021 in Everett, before a late call up to AA Arkansas. Then, he spent the entirety of 2022 in AA (with, I believe, some injury issues limiting his availability), and so far in 2023, he’s spent a comparable amount of time (0.1 fewer innings in 1 fewer start) in AA, working on things and growing as a pitcher.

In that sense, he’s probably ready. The Mariners, for their highest-rated prospects, like to call them up directly from AA. It makes you wonder why they even have a AAA team in the PCL, if all the stadia are so bad for pitchers/good for hitters, but the allure of having the Tacoma Rainiers right there in your backyard (for IL purposes, as well as hopefully-temporary demotions to work on things or get heads right) should be obvious to all.

I like to look through game logs in cases like these, where a highly-rated prospect is invited to The Show. Just looking at a stat line might be deceiving, unless the numbers are so blazing hot they’re undeniable. Hancock, at first blush, doesn’t look like a dominating AA force (4.32 ERA in 98 innings across 20 games), but that doesn’t tell you everything. Before his most recent outing on August 2nd (5 innings, 3 runs, on 6 hits and 2 walks, with 7 strikeouts; nothing to sneeze at), he was on fire: 20 IP, 1 ER, 8 hits, 2 walks, 19 K’s across three starts.

Cause for concern: in the start immediately preceeding that stretch, he was knocked out in the second inning, after giving up 9 runs on 9 hits, with 2 walks and 2 K’s. But, by and large he’s been mostly good this year, especially since the beginning of June. And, again, not even the game logs tell the full story, because we don’t really know what the team was asking him to do. Maybe he was told to focus on his secondary pitches, to get them up to snuff (knowing his fastball and control would play anywhere).

In the first two months of Woo’s season down in AA, he wasn’t anything spectacular. He was fine, but the starts tended to run short (almost certainly by design), and the results were up and down. But, apparently he’d mastered whatever it was the Mariners wanted him to work on (at least, well enough to get the call-up once Marco went down), and that’s all that mattered.

Similarly, with Bryce Miller, he wasn’t setting AA ablaze in the month of April. He had one good start, and even that was limited to 5 innings! So, you know, it’s impossible for someone like me, outside of the organization, to make any sort of educated determination on a pitcher’s readiness.

I would say Hancock is at least as ready as Miller or Woo. Maybe more! He has far and away more innings logged in AA than Miller and Woo combined. We’ll see how it translates to Hancock’s performance with the Mariners – especially in the dog days of summer, in the middle of a playoff race – but I can’t argue with decision, knowing what we know.

So, we’ll see if this is the right move for this year’s Mariners. I would think, going forward, this experience will be invaluable in the years to come. Either Hancock ingratiates himself as a permanent member of this rotation, or he turns himself into an even more valuable trade chip this offseason, in the event we find a deal for a quality bat. He’s never going to reach his fullest value as a trade prospect until teams see him pitch at this level. You have to believe – with Ray returning next year, and with one more year of Marco under contract – that the Mariners will be trading one of these young arms (as loathe as we are to think of it) in the offseason.

But, as I said before, for 2023, it’s either Hancock or Milone. Milone can get called up anytime; he’s not going anywhere. He’s a known quantity. You like him as a spot start guy in an emergency, but there’s diminishing returns the more exposed he becomes to Major League hitting. Hancock, on the other hand, has vastly more impressive stuff, and he’s a bit of a mystery. Here’s hoping that plays well in the short term, to give us a much-needed boost in this oh-so-critical time of the season.

The Mariners Maintained Their Rotation Strength

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I like to call it The Law Of Steve. It goes like this: is there something I really want? Is that something related to one of my favorite sports teams? Well, then one of two things is going to happen: either I’m not going to get that thing (for reasons), or I am going to get that thing, but it’s going to blow up in my face like you wouldn’t believe.

I tend to come on here a lot and bitch about the nice things we don’t get to have, as Mariners fans, as Seahawks fans, as Husky fans. It’s my lot in life. It’s my boulder I’m pushing up a mountain. It’s not as common for me to actually get something that I want, but I know when that happens, there’s some sort of sports god out there with a monkey’s paw ready for me to wish I had never even had an opinion on anything.

Oh, the Seahawks won a Super Bowl? Well guess what: next year they’re going to lose it in the most agonizing way possible, thoroughly upending their would-be dynasty!

Oh, the mid-90’s Supersonics finally got over the hump and are a legitimate championship team? Well guess what: they have to face the best team ever to that point and lose in six games!

Oh, the 2001 Mariners set the all-time wins record? Well guess what: they’re still going to blow it to the Yankees and fail to reach the World Series!

What I wanted from the Mariners at the trade deadline was to be sellers. Ship off Teoscar Hernandez, Ty France, maybe even Eugenio Suarez. Right or wrong, I just don’t believe those guys are going to be around the next time the Mariners qualify for the playoffs. I didn’t get what I wanted; what else is new?

The second-most thing I wanted was for the Mariners to not trade away their Major League starting pitchers for a hitter. And somehow, some way, my wish was granted.

Everyone always says you should trade from a position of strength to fill your weak spots. It’s just a no-brainer; you have too many great pitchers, or great whatevers, so you pluck someone and send him off for whatever it is you’re lacking. As a lifelong sports fan, I’m here to tell you: strengths don’t stay strong for long.

The sports gods find a way to wither away any team’s strengths, with injuries, with negative regression, with good ol’ fashioned bad luck.

So, I’m of the other mindset: hold onto your strengths as long as you can. Get as strong as possible at one specific thing, and ride that elitism as far as it will take you, filling in the cracks wherever you can by way of free agency, or trading away prospects (in the case of baseball) or draft picks (in the case of other sports).

The Mariners’ unquestioned strength is their starting rotation. Castillo is an Ace. Kirby and Gilbert are mostly excellent. Miller and Woo are up-and-comers, but still haven’t proven anything yet. There are a couple other guys in the high minors who are next on the list. And, of course, we still have Marco Gonzales for one more year (assuming we don’t find a trade partner for him this offseason), and Robbie Ray for 1-3 more years (depending on his player opt-out option after 2024).

Obviously, 2023 is a special situation. We have two injured starters, and we were forced to DFA Chris Flexen because he stunk. If we traded Kirby or Gilbert, sure we’d probably get back a massive haul, but we’d also have to fill in that spot in our rotation with some rando (a definite downgrade). On top of that, there’s a ticking clock on Miller and Woo considering they’re rookies and we’re trying to spare their usage. If we traded Miller or Woo, the haul in return would be less, and we’d still need a replacement rando to fill in. All for, presumably, an everyday position player or two who may or may not actually be good, because people come to Seattle all the time – highly-rated, sure-thing people like Jesse Winker – and are defeated by the park size and marine layer.

In short, if we traded one of those starters, we’d be worse off now, AND we’d be worse off in the future.

BUT. We forgot about The Law Of Steve.

I got what I wanted. That monkey’s paw just curled a finger. So, what’s going to happen now is that one of those guys (maybe Logan Gilbert, the more likely of the trade candidates) is going to get hurt. Or just start an unbelievable run of sucking. Bryce Miller has had back-to-back shaky outings with reduced velocity on his fastball; is this the first sign that he was actually meant to be a reliever all along? Did our window close on his trade value? Bryan Woo was very up-and-down in the month of July; is he destined to be in this rotation long term?

It makes me harken back to the Big Three (or Big Four, depending on your opinion of Brandon Maurer). You know what I wanted more than anything? To see a Mariners rotation with Taijuan Walker, James Paxton, and Danny Hultzen (and, sure Maurer, why not?). What happened? Well, we hung onto those guys for a while (well beyond their peak trade value), Maurer was converted to a reliever before being traded. Hultzen never cracked the Bigs until he was out of the organiztion. And Walker and Paxton had varying levels of health and effectiveness.

In short, I got what I wanted, but not REALLY. They were here, but they didn’t pan out the way I wanted them to. And then they were gone.

So, how will I be let down here? There are limitless possibilities! I can’t wait to be proven wrong once again.

The Mariners Should Be Sellers At The Trade Deadline

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I would like to believe there are consequences to our actions. The Mariners entered the second half of the season on an encouraging 7-2 hot streak. It got us back to a game over .500 and right in range of competing for a playoff spot. But, we couldn’t let up! There was two and a half weeks between the start of the second half and the upcoming trade deadline. One week in, the Mariners have gone 2-4, including losing 2 of 3 to the lowly Tigers, followed by losing 2 of 3 to a direct Wild Card rival in the Twins.

It’s clear the Mariners are going nowhere.

Once again, we’re a game under .500. Now there’s about a week and a half before the deadline. I’m officially throwing in the towel. This season is cooked. It’s time to start talking about trading away some tradeable assets and reloading for 2024.

Teoscar Hernandez should be the first to go. He’s in the final year of his deal, and he’s definitely not helping us in any way, shape, or form. However, he could help a club that plays in a ballpark that doesn’t stifle his power quite so much. Even though he may be underperforming based on expectations, there’s still good value there. Teams in need of a power bat should be lining up to try to take him from us. Maybe throw in a veteran reliever to sweeten the pot and see if you can get a good prospect or something.

I would look into trading Kolten Wong and A.J. Pollock for whatever you can get. Bag of balls, maybe some Big League Chew. Addition By Subtraction moves at their finest.

I would also see what the market is for a decent backup catcher. What are we holding onto Tom Murphy for?

Last night, I was all ready to blow things up in the bullpen and offer up Andres Munoz in trade, but I think that was mostly related to how shitty he’s looked in his last couple outings. Nevertheless, there’s an argument to be made that you’d be selling high on him. He has a very reasonable contract through 2025, with club options the next three years. I would be extremely curious to see what the rest of the league is willing to offer.

I think the Mariners would be idiotic to not trade away Sewald. Next year is his final Arbitration season before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. He’s also currently 33 years old and is probably as good as he’s ever going to be. The iron is hot, NOW is the time to strike!

I know everyone is ready to let Marco Gonzales go, but good luck trying to jettison that salary. Also he’s currently injured, so I don’t know how you think that’s going to work. My guess is we keep him on the team through this year, then quietly deal him for nothing in the offseason (either packaged with someone of value to get them to take his contract off our hands, or by eating a significant portion of the $12 million he’s owed next year).

I would, however, seriously try to move Ty France asap. He’s got two more Arbitration years left, but he’s 29 years old and already looks like he’s on the downside of his career. He’s one of the most HBP’d guys in baseball, which means he’s oft-banged up. He plays through a lot of pain – which is commendable – but he also clearly suffers at the plate as a result. He’s swung and missed at more terrible off-speed stuff than I ever remember him doing (except, again, when he’s playing through substantial injuries). This is not going to get better. It’s not going to stop, either. Now is the time to get what you can for him. If not, it’ll be too late and we’ll be stuck with him.

I’m not super-committed to this idea, but like with Munoz, I think I would have to listen to any calls that came in for Eugenio Suarez. His isn’t the easiest contract to take on, but he’s only set to earn $11 million next year, with a club option for 2025. And, I mean, he’s proven to play a mean third base. You’re telling me that’s not of value to one of the many legitimate playoff contenders?

I won’t get much crazier than that. I still think the Mariners need to hang onto the nucleus of this team. But, these players who are on expiring deals, they probably don’t deserve to hang around much longer. If we’re being sellers, that means bringing back prospects. Prospects who are either close to breaking into the Bigs, or who we can flip for more useful Major League pieces in 2024 and beyond.

But, it’s time to get rid of this fantasy that the 2023 Mariners are going to contend for anything. It doesn’t matter where we are in the standings, or what’s happening to the teams around us. WE are mediocre. WE can’t get out of our own way. WE keep finding ways to lose these winnable games.

So, WE need to extract as much value as we can from this lost season. That means both trimming the fat and also cutting off some prime cuts of meat to offer to the wolves. There’s no reason to cling to this sinking ship.

Do The Mariners Have What It Takes To Get To 90 Wins?

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And, more importantly, is 90 wins enough to get the Mariners in the playoffs?

As we sit here, the Mariners have played 89 games out of a 162-game season. Doing my very best mathematics, I believe that means there are 73 games left to go. In those first 89 games, the Mariners have gotten to 45 wins. I know we talk about pre- and post-All Star Break as the first and second “halves”, but as you can clearly see from my math above, we don’t actually have half of our games remaining. We have considerably less than half. And yet, somehow, we have to find a way to double our win total just to get to 90 wins, in 16 fewer games. Which, as I noted above, might not even be enough to get us in the playoffs.

The Mariners have dug themselves an annoying little hole here. Let’s take a look at the damage before we assess the likelihood of pulling out of this nosedive.

The Mariners are 45-44, in third place in the A.L. West. We had been in fourth place for most of the season, until this 7-2 stretch to close out the first half led to us taking a game lead over the Angels. But, we’re 4 games behind Houston and 6 games behind Texas. That’s not completely insurmountable, but obviously a tall order.

As for the wild card spots, we’re squarely in the thick of it. There are 8 teams (not counting the current division leaders) in the running for 3 spots. Currently, those spots are held by the Orioles, Blue Jays, and Astros. Since we know the Mariners are 4 games behind the Astros, that means we also know the Mariners are 4 games out of the final wild card spot. There are two other teams ahead of us as well: the Yankees are 3 games better, and have a tiebreaker over us thanks to winning 4 of 6 in our season series; the Red Sox are 2 games better, and are currently leading the tiebreaker advantage by having beaten us 2 of 3 times so far.

I should also point out, for tiebreaker purposes, that both the Blue Jays and Orioles have a 2 of 3 advantage so far. The Angels lead our season series 4-2, the Guardians have already won a tiebreaker advantage over us 4-3, and Texas has a 5-1 advantage. Currently, we have an edge over the Rays 2-1 (probably meaningless, since they figure to have a far-and-away better record than us by season’s end, and will likely win their division), the Astros (a significant 5-2 lead, with 6 games to go), and we’ve yet to play the Twins, which feels important if – indeed – the Mariners have decided to start playing more competent baseball.

So, there’s kind of a lot to overcome. It’s never easy, is it?

To get to 90 wins, the Mariners will have to go 45-28, or win at a .616 clip the rest of the way. That’s very nearly winning 2 of 3.

I mean, it’s not impossible, but it also leaves us with a razor thin margin for error. Is this team capable of going 45-28? Sure. If the pitching holds up (meaning: both it performs well, and doesn’t suffer any more catastrophic injuries). If the hitting turns itself around. It’s not like we’ve gotta turn into a completely new team; we just need to do a little bit better than we’ve been doing all year. Maybe a new bat helps. Or maybe we’re not able to find that difference-maker, but a guy or two already on the roster starts playing to his expected abilities.

There are some built-in challenges we have to overcome as well. Bryan Woo almost certainly won’t make it to the end of the season. He has a hard innings limit, and I don’t think there’s a way for us to manipulate that without risking his arm long term. My hope here is that he’s able to bridge the gap between Marco Gonzales’ IL stint. But, I haven’t heard any news about Marco in quite some time.

There’s also the Bryce Miller factor. This IL stint for a blister issue might be the best thing for him and us. I believe we have a little more leeway with Miller as far as an innings limit is concerned, but at some point his season is likely to end before we get to the playoffs, even if it is in September. There doesn’t appear to be any guarantee that Marco comes back, but even if he does, there’s a strong likelihood we may need another starter at some point. That means any number of Quad-A guys in Tacoma (like Tommy Milone, for instance, or Darren McCaughan), or maybe we give Emerson Hancock the ball (who surely has innings issues of his own, not to mention a shaky start to his AA season).

Does all this mean the Mariners might need to bring in another starter? I doubt we’ll do that – unless someone gets hurt in the next three weeks – but you never know.

Gun to my head: what do I predict?

I think the smart money is on the Mariners NOT making the playoffs. What needs to happen for this to come to fruition is simple: the Mariners need to continue playing the way they’ve played all year. We will, at some point, make a trade, but I can’t imagine it will be for any sort of high-impact bat. I think it’ll be one of those hedge moves. Maybe it’s a guy with club control – where we can shed Wong and/or Pollock – of the Abraham Toro variety. Maybe there’s an aging Carlos Santana type to be had for cheap. But, what’s working against us is the simple fact that there are so many good teams looking for improvements (11 out of 15 teams in playoff contention the American League alone, with another 8 out of 15 in the N.L. all within just a half-game of the post-season, not counting the Padres and Cubs, who have losing records but positive run differentials). So, either the Mariners have to over-spend in trade to get someone who might not even be enough to get us to the playoffs anyway, or we settle for someone on the fringes and hope for the best.

Conversely, what needs to happen for the Mariners to right the ship?

We need Julio, Eugenio, and Cal to all pick up their games significantly on the offensive side of things. We need Teoscar, Ty, Jarred, and J.P. to just be who they’ve been and no worse. We need a little more out of second base, whether that’s Wong getting hot or Caballero being more than just a walk machine. And then we just need a bat to be in that middle range of Teoscar/Ty/Jarred. Like a Mike Ford, or a Tom Murphy, or an A.J. Pollock, or TBD.

But, the majority of this stretch run needs to be dominated by our stars: Julio, Eugenio, and Cal. Those are our monsters, and it’s about time for them to be unleashed.

On the pitching side of things, no notes from our starters, other than: no more injuries. As for the relievers, I want to see some unsustainable hot stretches from our back-end-of-the-bullpen guys. Brash, Munoz, and Sewald. No more blown saves. No more back-breaking homers allowed. Just zeroes, by whatever means necessary.

I believe in Julio. I think he has a helluva second half in store. I’m less bullish on Suarez or Raleigh. And the bullpen kinda scares me a little bit.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to root like crazy. That doesn’t mean there’s a small, simple part of me – buried deep down, underneath decades of insufferable Mariners play – that believes in a playoff run. If it happens, it’ll be up there with the ’95 comeback. But, I’m bracing myself for disappointment. This is the way.

The Mariners Had To Cut Chris Flexen

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He was a great pitcher to root for, until all of a sudden he wasn’t.

It’s rare to get a 100% success rate out of a free agent. Sometimes they come in and suck right away. Sometimes their sucking comes on randomly, and without warning. And sometimes they’re better than you could’ve possibly hoped for, only to trail off at the very end before quietly being DFA’d so you can call up a reliever from the IL.

My point is, there’s only one Nelson Cruz, but that’s not who I’m writing about today.

Chris Flexen was a steal for the Mariners. We plucked him from relative obscurity – as he played ball in 2020 in the KBO – after a ragged start to his Major League career with the Mets. He’d finally figured out how to put it all together, and we were on it enough to sign him to a 2-year contract with an option for a third. Even though it wasn’t a ton of money, I think a lot of us were confused why this nobody was getting such a guarantee. But, he quickly put those questions to bed, as he was one of our best and steadiest starters in 2021.

His 2022 wasn’t quite as good, but the results were still mostly there. He played about 2/3 of the year in the rotation before we traded for Luis Castillo and there was an undeniable numbers crunch in the rotation. It came down to either Flexen or Marco, with Flexen going to the bullpen as a long man. Fortunately for us, the Mariners were good enough that he wasn’t needed a whole lot during the final couple months.

Flexen proved useful enough as a reliever to keep around for 2023 as insurance. Of course, we were on the hook for a massive pay increase – based on his performance the previous two seasons – but it felt nice having that kind of insurance. Someone with starting experience who we could stash in the bullpen. It seemed all the more lucky to have him once Robbie Ray went on the IL after his first start, as there was no way the M’s were going to have the same kind of rotational injury luck as they did in 2022.

But, there’s no other way to describe it: Flexen has been terrible this season. He took a loss in every one of his four starts before Bryce Miller was called up to replace him. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that he wasn’t any better in relief. He had a string of five scoreless outings after going back into the bullpen, but then followed that up with seven appearances where he gave up at least one run, with the last five seeing him giving up multiple runs.

Flexen had sub-4 ERAs his first two years here, but in 2023 that jumped to 7.71. He kinda looks done, but maybe he just needs a change of scenery.

There’s a tendency to see something like this as a microcosm for the Mariners’ season. Was he just lucky the last two years, and now he’s seeing that luck swing the other way? Was he good the last two years, and now he’s trash? That’s the big question, isn’t it? On the very same day that Flexen was let go, the Mariners suffered one of their worst, most inexcusable losses of the season. One thing doesn’t correlate to the other, necessarily, though it was Trevor Gott who got the call up to replace Flexen (who also took the L in this 11th inning defeat). But, Gott shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. We should’ve won it in the 10th when we had the bases loaded with nobody out and our 3-4-5 hitters coming to the plate.

Sure, Flexen has had a crappy 2023 season. But, so has Julio. So has Suarez. So has Cal and Ty and Teoscar. So has Wong and Pollock and Murphy. So has Moore and Haggerty. So has Brash and Sewald (who have 7 blown saves between them, including one apiece last night). The numbers might look good for the bullpen, but they haven’t gotten the job done either.

This is a collective face-plant. If this was a video game, we would’ve reset the season ages ago and started over. But, this is real life, and we’re stuck with what we’ve got. At least Flexen gets to leave. He does get to start over. Hopefully it goes better for him at his next stop.

The Mariners Are Going Nowhere This Year

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It’s so fucking predictable and cliche, it could’ve come from the hackiest episode of The Big Bang Theory: the 2023 Mariners – expected to not only make it back to the playoffs, but perhaps vie for a World Series spot – come crashing down to Earth like so many exploding SpaceX rockets. If you didn’t see this coming, then I’m sorry that you’ve only been a Mariners fan since 2022; it’s been nice having you, and we wish you well in all your future endeavors. There’s a red-hot Rangers team you can be a fan of, as witnessed by this weekend’s motherfucking dismantling of all of my hopes and dreams.

For the rest of us tried and true, long-in-the-tooth Mariners fans, we’ve been waiting for this shoe to drop since last year. You could set your watch to the Mariners having a miracle season, making the playoffs for the first time in over two decades, and immediately falling flat on their faces the very next season, when expectations would be at their peak. There’s something about the weight of those expectations, it’s like adding 10 extra All Stars to every opponent’s roster. There’s always a new crop of Mariners showing up every single year; how do they instinctively know that upon putting on this uniform, you’re obliged to just annoy the shit out of all your fans?

I don’t even know what there is to say about a weekend like that. Swept by the Rangers. I mean, I’m used to being swept by the first place team in the A.L. West, but usually that’s coming at the hands of a different team from that state. We lost 2-0 on Friday, then got savagely blown out on Saturday and Sunday, 16-6 and 12-3. When you put that in line with the previous Yankees series defeats – 10-4 and 10-2 – we’ve really done a number on the ol’ run differential. Which is why I’m always dubious about using run differential as a barometer for anything. In took 4 games to reduce our respectable run differential all the way down to a measly +3. The Mariners are who we thought we were.

It’s one thing to not score, much like a nerdy, tongue-tied teen in high school, the Mariners should be used to not scoring. But, these fucking blowouts man, they’re not supposed to happen! Our pitching is too fucking good to be giving up these crooked numbers!

Granted, it doesn’t help that we’re now up to two rookies in our starting rotation, thanks to injuries (Bryan Woo is the latest, filling Marco’s spot). It doesn’t help that our long reliever has turned back into a pumpkin. But, still, their stuff shouldn’t be this hittable.

Teams with great pitching are supposed to neutralize teams with great hitting. That’s how it works! If the Mariners can’t hit, they need to be able to rely on their pitching to keep them in games. Being blown out 4 times in a week is fucking unacceptable!

I don’t like this team. Nothing about this year is enjoyable. We’re striking out like it’s going out of style. No one’s hitting over .270. And the whole fucking off-season narrative of the Mariners not spending enough money is coming to fruition. I mean, it was so fucking obvious, even a caveman could come to the conclusion that the M’s didn’t do enough in free agency to supplement this team. Now, we have to fucking scramble in the trade market to try and bail out this sinking fucking ship. Good fucking luck.

The Mariners Won An Important Series Against The Pirates

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It’s cool to defeat the A’s – it certainly beats the alternative – but at some point the Mariners need to start winning series against competent teams, not just the absolute bottom-feeders. Obviously, the M’s are desperate, so any and all victories are welcome (except moral victories, they can fuck right off), but if nothing else, for our confidence, we needed to take down a team that’s actually decent.

Enter: the Pittsburgh Pirates.

No one’s confusing them with the Astros or Rays. But, they’re a team that has pretty much the same record as the Mariners. They have a good amount of offense, and not the worst pitching in the world, so in my book that’s a worthy challenge to see where we are coming off of that 4-game sweep of the A’s.

Immediately losing 11-6 on Friday sure didn’t do much for my well-being! That’s about as big of an anomaly as you’ll see, though. George Kirby has been the best pitcher on this team – and one of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues – so I wouldn’t expect to see him giving up 4 homers in a game again anytime soon. All told, he couldn’t get through five, while giving up 7 runs (all earned) on 9 hits.

If you are looking for a moral victory, it’s the fact that the M’s scored 6 runs, and the way we scored them. The Pirates went up 1-0 in the first; we got a run back in the bottom half, then scored again in the second to take a short-lived 2-1 lead. The Pirates re-tied it in the 4th, then scored a whopping 5 more in the fifth. But, we got 2 more in the bottom half to make it somewhat interesting at 7-4. Unfortunately, our bullpen also didn’t have it, and kept letting them score. It was 10-4 in the bottom of the seventh, when we got two more runs. Every time we got it within reaching distance, they stepped on the gas. It was somewhat encouraging, but overall more of the same. This Mariners team just finds ways to lose. Sometimes, they’re a broken record, sometimes they find ways to surprise us. This time was a definite shocker.

As we do, though, the pitching bounced back. Luis Castillo on Saturday went 6 shutout innings, striking out 10. It was masterful! The bullpen completed the task and we ended up winning 5-0. J.P., Ty, and Julio had 2 hits each, and Suarez had a couple big RBIs.

Then came the Sunday rubber match. All too often, these series have been swung by the rubber match, which often comes down to a single run or a single at bat. In this case, behind a strong start from Marco (5.2 innings, 1 run), we had a 3-1 lead heading into the eighth inning. But, the combo of Topa and Sewald blew it, sending us into extras. This time, however, we managed to keep them off the board, and Suarez won it for us in the bottom of the 10th with a 3-run blast. His power numbers had been severely lacking, so this weekend was a welcome return to form for our third baseman.

All in all, this was a pretty great weekend for our struggling hitters. Suarez, Julio, Ty, and even Teoscar had key hits to lift up the offense. Not a moment too soon, as the Yankees come to town this week. We’re going to need all the bats we can get if we want to make it back-to-back-to-back series victories.

The One Thing The 2023 Mariners Are Good At: Sweeping The A’s

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When people start talking about the ________ of all time, I tend to tune out. The phrase Greatest Of All Time – and particularly its acronym – is so over-used, even my enjoyment of the actual farm animal is in jeopardy. Recency Bias is a fucking scourge of American life, and in no way is it worse than in sports.

That being said, we might literally be watching the most inept team in baseball history in the Oakland Athletics. Or, at the very least, in the “modern era”, whatever that means to you and your god.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t tend to pay great attention to the baseball teams outside of Seattle. But, I can’t for the life of me ever remember a team starting 10-42. That’s an insane, unreal set of numbers to me. What was the old Ron Fairly line? Everyone wins 60 games and loses 60 games, and it’s what you do with the other 42 that determines your season? Forget 60, are the A’s even going to get to 42 victories? We’re at a point in the season where you can legitimately make the argument that this A’s squad is going to lose more games than anyone ever.

Talk about playing the right team at the right time!

The Mariners needed this. I don’t want to say anything comes easy in professional sports, but the Mariners needed an easy 4-game sweep of a crap team in front of our home fans. And, we more or less got it (it’s debatable how “easy” two of those games were), while adding a couple wins to our 1-run game ledger to boot.

Monday’s game featured an offensive explosion, a quality rebound from Luis Castillo, and some much-needed work for the guys in the back of our bullpen. All told, it added up to an 11-2 victory. France, Julio, Kelenic, and Suarez all had multi-hit games; these are EXACTLY the four guys you’d want to have multi-hit games. These are the studs we need to rely on if we’re going to turn this season around.

Tuesday’s game was an incredibly interesting 3-2 victory. Marco gave up two runs in the first inning – one start after giving up 8 runs and not getting out of the second frame – and we all expected it was another Shitty Marco performance. But, he buckled down and left after six innings, still having given up just the two runs. Meanwhile, the M’s scored all three of their runs on back-to-back homers in the fifth by J.P. and Ty. The bullpen successfully made it the final three innings for the save (sans Brash, by the way, who has fallen out of favor for those high leverage spots).

Wednesday’s game was another blowout affair, with the M’s winning 6-1. We scored five of those runs in an extended rally in the 4th, before Teoscar hit a solo homer late for a little insurance. In this one, J.P., Julio, Cal, and Pollock all had multi-hit games. Meanwhile, Bryce Miller had another phenomenal start: 6 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, all on 90 pitches. He lowered his ERA to 1.15, while lowering his WHIP to 0.51! The lone run was allowed … by Brash, who got knocked around for 3 more hits in his one inning of work.

The Mariners finished off the sweep with another come-from-behind 3-2 victory. Logan Gilbert gave up a 2-run homer in the first, before settling down, finishing 8 very strong innings, giving up 3 hits, 0 walks, and striking out 6, all on only 77 pitches. Paul Sewald got the save, his 11th on the season so far. This one was the Ty France Show. Two days after getting hit on the hand, and one day after having to sit out because of that hand, he was back and hitting bombs. Solo homer in the first, solo homer in the sixth, and scoring the go-ahead run in the eighth off of a bases loaded Suarez walk. It wasn’t the most impressive offensive performance I’ve ever seen, but Julio had a couple of hits to start to work out of his funk.

This brings the Mariners to 26-24, with the Pittsburgh Pirates coming to town this weekend. Let’s see if we can keep this going, or if we need to restructure the schedule to only play the Athletics from here on out.

Biggest Disappointments (So Far) Of The 2023 Mariners

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Yesterday, I got into some of the bright spots. Today, it’s time to shine a light on the pits of despair.

As always, there’s a lot of blame to go around when a team is as mediocre as the Mariners. To put things in perspective, as of the moment of this writing, the M’s are 10-1 against Oakland, Colorado, and St. Louis (three of the worst, or at least most-underperforming, teams on our schedule to date). Against everyone else, we’re 14-23.

But, I don’t want this post to be 300 pages long. So, we’re not going to get into the bottom part of the order too much. Frankly, I never expected much out of La Stella or Pollock or even Wong; they all felt like poor fits to me, and I was never going to be surprised that they sucked. It also isn’t terribly shocking that Haggerty has been bad at the plate, or that Murphy got off to a slow start, or that Trammell & Hummel are more Quad-A guys than actual Major Leaguers. If you went into this season banking on one or more of these guys to be catalysts to our success, you were always bound to be disappointed.

What’s more concerning has been our studs, who have been decidedly unstudly. We’re never going to go anywhere if these guys don’t pick it up.

With so many other storylines going on, Julio Rodriguez was kind of sliding under the radar for a while. But, he’s been pretty far from what we had come to expect from him. Somewhere in between the dregs of last April and the rest of the season, but a helluva lot closer to the poor end of that spectrum. I don’t think it was out of line for people to already have notions of MVPs dancing in their heads, so an OPS under .700 this far into May is fairly discouraging. I don’t think anyone believes this is who he’s going to be the rest of the year, but he can snap out of this funk anytime now, as far as I’m concerned.

Teoscar gets a lot of the flak, and sort of gets lumped in with the other shitty newcomers, but I don’t think he’s unsalvageable. I also don’t think he’s necessarily been anything other than what we should have expected. Maybe he’s a little light in the extra-base hits, maybe he’s striking out a bit more than normal. But, he was always a guy who struck out a lot. He was always Boom Or Bust. I think where the disconnect lays – and I’m as guilty of it as anyone – is projecting him to be some sort of Home Run King or something upon arriving here. We saw a guy with a lot of talent, a guy entering a contract year, and a guy with enough power to overcome the challenges of playing half his games in Marine Layer, U.S.A. But, I think this is just who he is. He’s not going to become the next Nelson Cruz in a Mariners uniform. He’s going to muddle his way through this season, and take the biggest deal he can get with another team next year. I do expect he’ll pick it up a little bit at some point, but I also don’t think he’s going to be a huge guy for us.

I think I’m officially starting to sour on the Ty France experience. I certainly, 100% don’t want to see him reach a second contract with the Mariners. We’re talking about a guy who, sure, when he’s healthy, he’s probably my favorite type of hitter on this team. But, part of that quality that makes him so rootable also tends to get him hurt. He crowds the plate and takes an inordinate number of pitches off his body. Last year, he went on the IL while playing in the field, and when he returned he was pretty much worthless for the rest of the season. It turned out – obviously – that he was playing in a considerable amount of pain. And, at least for him, he can’t seem to perform when he’s trying to fight through nagging injuries. Already this year, we’ve seen him go in the tank; is he already dealing with injuries and we’re not even two full months in yet? I just wish Evan White wasn’t also so injury prone (with MUCH more devastating conditions), because I was really hoping to see what he could do before his contract starts getting expensive. Either way, Ty’s home run power seems to be dwindling, and he’s not even really putting up an impressive batting average. I think it’s a long, slow decline from here on out.

Eugenio Suarez is quite off of his power pace from last year, and while I don’t think this is bound to continue forever – he tends to hit them in bunches – it’s yet another major reason why the M’s have had so much trouble scoring runs this year. Last year at this time, he had 9 homers and 9 doubles; this year it’s 5 and 5. Just boil it down to that. Everything else being pretty much equal, you have to imagine the additional RBI of just equalling what he did last year (adding 4 more doubles and 4 more homers to his current total) might be worth a small handful of games by themselves, considering what our record is in 1-run games.

It’s easy to shit on Marco Gonzales – I do it all the time! If you put him in perspective, I’ll admit you could do a lot worse for a #5 starter. But, we’re 9 starts in and I would argue he didn’t give us a chance to win 3 of them based on his performance. He’s reached 6 innings (and no further) 4 times, in spite of extremely reasonable pitch counts in all of his starts. That shows me a guy who can, at times, be effective, but even then he can’t be trusted. We’re trying to squeeze as much as we can out of this dried sponge, and then getting him the hell off the mound.

I would say Matt Brash isn’t exactly the force of nature we were promised by pretty much everyone this offseason. The stuff is still there, but he’s disturbingly hittable for a guy we’ve been trying to shoehorn into high leverage spots. It makes me wonder if he’s ever going to figure it out. I was still holding out some hope that he’d one day return to a starting role, but if he can’t even master a single inning, how would we be able to trust him with 6+?

Finally, let’s dump on Chris Flexen. On the one hand, maybe we should be praising him; for, if he hadn’t stunk so hard in his limited duty as a 6th starter – following Ray’s injury – we wouldn’t have gotten to see Bryce Miller this early. But, his entire package – even as a reliever – has been appalling. He’s in a contract year, he had been pretty reliable as a back-of-the-rotation starter until this season, and there was every reason to believe we might trade him at the deadline for a prospect, or as part of a package to bring in a hitter to help us for the stretch run. Instead, his value is pretty much nothing, and we’d be trading him just to get him off our roster. I would say that maybe there’s hope he can rebuild his reputation in the bullpen, but we don’t have very many opportunities to make use of a long reliever with the rotation arms we have now. And he’s not a leverage reliever in the slightest; you can pretty much only use him in blowouts. Sure, he’s had five consecutive scoreless outings (8 total innings) since his ERA hit its zenith of 8.86, but it’s taken him a little over 3 weeks just to accrue those outings. He’s a last resort, and he’s going to have to be near-perfect from now until the end of July to have any value at all.