So So Roadtrip Mariners

The Seattle Mariners come home to face the San Francisco, Houston Astros, and the Kansas City Royals. We can only hope that the Mariners can improve on the last home stand for sure, and the road trip.

The Mariners went 4-4 on the road trip; however, it seemed worse because two losses to the Astros were 10-1 and 13-0. Also the road trip started off with the Mariners beating the Cleveland Indians two out of three games. They gave hope that things were turning around before the games in Houston. The game on Monday against the Giants in San Francisco looked like their best game of the season winning 5-1 before losing Tuesday afternoon 6-2. What made the first game in San Francisco look good was that the Mariners scored runs in four different innings. I am sure it was the first time they have done that this season. In those games that they actually scored at least four runs were primarily done in a couple innings. Other words one of the Mariners biggest problem this season is adding on runs after scoring early. The game in Houston that they won 8-1 the runs were scored in a couple innings. In fact, Lloyd McClendon was upset they did not add on runs in that game.

This is the problem of the Mariners not scoring runs consistently along with lack of hitting with runners in scoring position. All the Mariners need to do is to add even one more run a game. It looks like they are wanting at hitting home runs instead of playing what is called small ball where teams try to score a one or two by hitting single, and doubles along with speed, butting, and sacrifice flies. When teams like the Mariners are losing generally by one run need to make changes to be able to add a couple extra runs; it is possible the current roster does not have capability to do so. We do look at the roster and believe the Mariners should be doing better than they have.

Felix Hernandez will be pitching tonight (Wednesday) against the Giants. We can hope that he will do better than the previous three games. The one thing we know is that Felix is very competitive and will work the hardest to win the game. This game looks like one that will be close, and we know that they are not doing well in those kinds of games. We can hope that the Mariners can start off well in the game. They have scored runs against top pitches early in some games. Also we can hope this will be the series that the Mariners will turn things around. Of course we have thought that the last two stands both at home and on the road. The Mariners did bring up James Jones on Monday. We can hope that his speed will help the Mariners out. This will have to be the case because otherwise Jones on the team has no other benefit.

For the Mariners to be better Robinson Cano will need to play better; it is the most important thing but as I have said before the bottom of the batting order needs to improve, and a better bench. The latter two are OK the way it stays as long Cano gets back to normal. The next month will decide whether the current season can become a success or whether we have to look at next season. I hope we can all see success the next month. The thing is the American League West is still ready to be taken over by the Mariners. The Astros do not have a lead right now where the Mariners can’t climb back into the race.  Let’s Go Mariners!