Season Ends with Eighty-Six Wins For Mariners

All of us Mariners fans are disappointing that the Mariners did not make it to the playoffs once again. You could say it is fifteen years and counting. On the positive side they did when eight-six games this year compared to seventy-six wins last year. It was a quite an improvement over a team last year that was expected to make it into the playoffs and all the way to the World Series. That high expectations cost the Mariners general manager and manager their jobs. Now with Dipoto and Servais at the helms it seems that the Mariners are on the way where we can see consistent seasons of eighty-six wins or more. I liked what Servais said after the game where he wants more than having a ball club that is over .500 he wants a team in the playoffs.

It looks to me the Mariners have players that are hungry and want to get into the playoffs on a regular basis. Before I forget they did lose the final game against the A’s 3-2. They did have their opportunities in the game but came short. Felix Hernandez pitched only three innings and gave up the three runs. In post-game interview he mentioned in getting back to where he was before 2016 and include pitching a little in winter ball. He will likely be put on the same program Robinson Cano was on last off-season. He knows if he wants to make it into the playoffs he has to be healthy and pitch better than he did this year.

I have mentioned some things that will need to change for the upcoming season. The Mariners fortunately don’t need a lot of change like they did after last year. I will get into those things in future posts.

I will do my annual report card this week about the team. Most likely I will break it into at least a couple posts if not three. I will probably start out with the pitching and then go into the infield and outfield. We all know to that there will be upgrades in all three of those areas during the off-season.

I am sure with the playoffs starting Tuesday with the American League play in game we will have some withdrawals concerning the Mariners and baseball. It could be postponed until after the World Series. I would not be surprised if Dipoto makes a few transactions or at least announcements before October is over.   Probably announce who may not return or put on waivers. We do know that the Mariners have a few free agents notably Adam Lind and Dae-Ho Lee. I am pretty confident that Lind won’t return and the chances that Lee won’t either since he had a pretty poor second half of the season. It was nice to have him around for one season though. Another one who probably won’t be invited back is Chris Iannetta. He had a decent first half of the season but poor second half when Mike Zunino returned. In fact he played very little in September which shows that he probably won’t be back either. I will look at those others I believe won’t return next season either next week. It is nice to know that the team progressed over last season. The main thing is to be more consistent next year; until the next time for the report cards enjoy the off-season especially the holidays. Go M’s.