When you consider that:
… then you get what the Seattle Mariners continue to experience.
The Mariners have lost eight straight games after a 4-3 loss in 10 innings when they failed to break a tie with a runner on third base in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. But at least they scored, breaking a 22-inning streak without a run when Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-run triple in the fifth.
Time for a lineup shakeup? As manager Don Wakamatsu says, how many more ways are there to shake it up? He’s already got guys hitting in places you might never have envisioned.
Casey Kotchman has batted third most of the past week, but his 0-for-4 game tonight left him 1-for-31 on the homestand. Franklin Gutierrez isn’t your prototypical No. 4 hitter, but he’s the best the Mariners have right now with a .322 average and a .470 slugging percentage that’s the best on the team by 91 points.
The DH position is a mess. Mike Sweeney’s run-scoring double in the sixth was only the eighth RBI out of the DH spot this season. With the Mariners due to face right-handed starters for at least another week, will Wakamatsu keep running the struggling Ken Griffey Jr. out there or will he give at-bats to Sweeney in hopes of getting something, anything, out of a DH?
Besides urging better at-bats or turning into Lou Piniella and demanding another hitter (as if it’ll take just one?), the only other thing left for Wakamatsu to do is tear his hair out. He might try Figgins in the leadoff spot and move Ichiro down, but he already has said that won’t happen.
The Mariners have lost eight straight games and will rely Sunday on left-hander Jason Vargas and a miracle against Ervin Santana to avoid the cleanest of sweeps — a winless nine-game homestand.
You can’t even say it could get ugly because, well, it already has.
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