Coming of the All-Star Break

 

The all-star break is coming up in baseball at the end of this weekend. It is known unofficially the half way mark of the baseball season though the teams have played a little over half their games.

Besides enjoying the all-star game along with the homerun derby and everything that goes along with it the teams will evaluate what they need to do have a successful second half of the season. Of course, evaluation has been going on for a while especially with the fans.

My home team the Seattle Mariners most everyone knows that the team needs more hitting. The team is last in batting average in the major leagues. The biggest problem is scoring with runners in scoring position. The Mariners do not lack on getting runners on base it is getting them home.

Thursday night’s game against the Angels was another example the problems have had though they did win 7-2. There was at least one instance where they had a runner on third with one out and could not get the guy home. Actually they had a runner on second as well. I thought maybe they would get at least one run in but I was wrong again. You think I would have learned by now. The Mariners also had two runners who out at home plate as well. It is another problem making running mistakes throughout the season.

The Mariners picked up Mark Trumbo in late May because of the problems with hitting. So far he hasn’t done the job the Mariners traded for him, however, he is doing better lately. In fact, the last few days the Mariners do look like the second half could be different than the first half in scoring runs. Though they are making same mistakes as I recalled the opportunities are happening more and they are scoring more runs lately. We can only hope things will be different.

The thing the Mariners could do is pick up another bat to play left field. Right now they have Seth Smith and Franklin Gutierrez platooning in left but they could use a full time player in the position. Right field is being shared by Mark Trumbo and Nelson Cruz with one of them at designated hitter at the same time. If they could have a full time left fielder than Nelson Cruz could be at designated hitter most of the time. It would be OK if he were in right field a couple times a week but no more. It would be nice to have Seth Smith playing in right field in a platoon situation which was planned when the season started. Right now Dustin Ackley would be OK to play in center field occasionally to give Austin Jackson a day off.

Regardless who plays in the field the problem is still with the hitting.  It does look like Robinson Cano is coming out of his season long slump. If he does the second half could look a lot different for the Mariners especially if you see Mark Trumbo improving as well. If it wasn’t for Nelson Cruz the hitting would even be far worse. You sort of wonder how many games the Mariners would have won if they didn’t have him.

The pitching has been the strong point for the season especially the starting despite having Iwakuma and Paxton being out most of the first half. Iwakuma just returned last Monday; however, his first outing was not good. We can only hope that he improves the rest of the way; however, they do have the depth with Elias pitching now down in Triple A. No one knows really when Paxton will return; however, he will be an added plus if the Mariners get back in the race by the end of August or in September.

The bullpen on the other hand has had its up and downs. If it wasn’t for Mark Lowe and Carson Smith things would be a lot worse. Other than Charlie Furbush the other members of the bullpen besides Lowe and Smith have had their challenges. In fact, two pitchers they were going to count on from last year were traded along with a couple others being sent to Triple A. We can only hope things will be straighten out in the bullpen along with Lowe and Smith continuing having a good season.

The good thing with the pitching the Mariners have depth. It would be nice if the everyday players and the bench would have the same thing. We can only hope that what Edgar Martinez new batting coach is giving them will materialize. In the end Go Mariners!