As The Herald’s Seattle sports reporter I’m required to juggle many hats, doing my best to try and keep up with all the sports goings on in the region. However, there’s no question that the Seahawks are kings in this town right now, so most of my time is devoted to football.
So that’s the context for where I found myself last Saturday night. The Seahawks held their rookie minicamp last weekend, which made for three long days at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center watching a group of largely anonymous players, most of whom will never actually play for the Seahawks.
I returned home from the VMAC at about 7 p.m., flipped on the television and found both of Seattle’s other major professional teams, the Mariners and Sounders, in action. With my wife out for the evening, it was the rare opportunity to claim the remote control for myself and cycle between games.
Within minutes of settling in I’d experienced Robinson Cano hitting a 10th-inning home run that stood up as the difference in a 3-2 Mariners victory over the Houston Astros. On the very next channel change I witnessed Clint Dempsey scoring the opening goal in what was eventually the Sounders’ 2-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes.
It was that moment when I realized it’s time all of us adjusted our priorities. It’s time we all stopped allowing ourselves to get preoccupied by the Seahawks’ offseason and started paying more attention to the Mariners and Sounders.
I understand the Seahawks are the team people care most about. All it takes is one look at the web analytics to know who the fans are interested in. When it comes to Seattle teams, there’s the Seahawks and there’s everyone else. The Seahawks held a camp in which it would be a shock if 10 of the 68 attendees are in uniform for the season opener against the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 11, while the Mariners and Sounders played meaningful games. Yet the stories that got the clicks on our website were about subjects like undrafted quarterbacks, some of whom didn’t even last past the weekend.
But given the things the Mariners and Sounders are doing right now it’s time to start clicking on headlines that don’t include “Seahawks.”
There are parallels to the way both the Mariners and Sounders started the season that help explain why they’re not receiving the attention they deserve. Both got off to stuttering starts in which the main problem was a lack of offense. It was frustrating, it wasn’t entertaining, and it gave the casual fans justification for turning their attention elsewhere, with it inevitably falling upon all the minutiae of the Seahawks offseason.
But if you haven’t been paying attention, both the Mariners and Sounders have been doing some pretty cool things lately.
Heading into the weekend the Mariners were the hottest team in the American League. Just a month earlier the M’s were wondering what was wrong after losing their first five games at Safeco Field to drop to 2-6. But after sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays the Mariners have won 16 of their previous 21 and zoomed into first place in the AL West at 21-13.
Leading the way is Cano, who’s playing as well as anyone in the league. Right now Cano is as hot as he was cold this time last season, when people were saying age was catching up to the veteran second baseman, and that the Mariners were going to be left rueing the 10-year, $240 million contract they gave Cano prior to the 2014 season. Going into Friday, Cano led the AL in home runs (12) and RBI (33), and if an MVP was named after the season’s first six weeks Cano would be among the top contenders.
And it isn’t just that the Mariners are winning, it’s the way they’re winning. Seattle, which spent the past decade perfecting the art of playing dull, low-scoring games, is suddenly creating more excitement than a joint Donald Trump/Bernie Sanders supporters’ rally. The Mariners’ 4.5 runs per game ranked 10th among the majors’ 30 teams, and it’s the team’s highest scoring rate since 2007. And the team is doing its damage at the most dramatic moments as the Mariners led the majors with nine game-winning RBI in the seventh inning or later. Unheralded players like Dae-Ho Lee and Chris Iannetta are making names for themselves with their late-game heroics.
Meanwhile, the Sounders have experienced a similar renaissance. After starting the season with three consecutive losses for the first time in franchise history, the Sounders are 4-1-1 in their past six games, moving off the bottom of the MLS Western Conference standings and right back into the playoff mix, especially considering Seattle has two games in hand on the teams just above.
The problem for the Sounders early on was an inability to find the net. Seattle had just two goals in those opening three defeats, and the specter of leading goal scorer Obafemi Martins defecting to China just before the season began threatened to haunt the Sounders throughout the season. But Seattle’s offense has improved, scoring eight times in the next six games. Moving Dempsey back into a central position to keep him more engaged has sparked offensive creativity, and Jordan Morris is finally reaching the heights expected of him following his high-profile signing, scoring in four consecutive contests.
The teams that are actually in season are now providing what should be more than enough entertainment for those suffering from offseason football withdrawal.
The Seahawks still have plenty of offseason headlines in store. The infamous OTAs begin later this month, and there’s the intrigue of potential contract extensions for general manager John Schneider, coach Pete Carroll and star receiver Doug Baldwin.
But it’s time for all of us — myself included — to spend a little less time obsessing over every little thing that happens during the Seahawks offseason, and spend a little more time appreciating what the Mariners and Sounders are doing.
Check out Nick Patterson’s Seattle Sidelines blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/seattlesidelines, and follow him on Twitter at @NickHPatterson.
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