I always knew this Mariners team was awful, horrendous

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, May 6, 2001

SEATTLE – What’s wrong with the Mariners?

The third baseman can’t handle a routine ground ball.

The veteran starting pitcher goes to pieces after a little adversity.

The first guy out of the bullpen resembles a batting practice pitcher.

The Nos. 3-4-5 batters go zip-zip-zip.

If all that isn’t bad enough, the M’s lose a series and end the homestand with a lousy 3-3 record, dropping their season mark to a despicable 23-8 and to only an eight-game lead in the American League West Division.

Geez!

Time for a team meeting. Or for the manager to trash the clubhouse. Or for the general manager to make a trade.

Get on those talk radio phone lines and rip the M’s.

Read ‘em the riot act.

Easy boys and girls.

We jest.

The M’s were due one of these.

They were due a day when nothing went right – the hitters didn’t hit well, the pitchers didn’t pitch well and the fielders didn’t field well.

Even the crowd was off its game: It tried to mount a Wave – and failed. Which was the only good thing about the M’s 11-3 loss to Toronto.

Check that. The sun stayed out all day, providing the first semblance of warmth during the homestand.

What happened Sunday is what happens several times to even the best of teams during a season – “We just got blown out today,” said manager Lou Piniella. “What’re you going to do?”

He supplied an answer a few minutes later. The M’s will take today off, fly to Boston and play the Red Sox on Tuesday.

A game like Sunday’s isn’t all bad. It reminds fans that they have enjoyed the best of times during the first five weeks of the season and that they just might have to suffer through some worst of times.

As for the Mariners, they already knew that.

They know they’ll have spells when the pitching is good and the hitting isn’t. Maybe even when the hitting is good and the pitching isn’t.

Now and then, the defense might even let down, as it did Sunday, when backup third baseman Mark McLemore let a sure-out grounder get the best of him with two outs in the third inning of a scoreless game.

It wasn’t scoreless for long. Two singles and a home run later, the Blue Jays were up 4-0.

It’s a rare game when the M’s give up an unearned run. In that one inning alone, they gave up four. In the 30 games prior to Sunday, they’d given up five.

Asked if the McLemore error rattled starting pitcher John Halama, Piniella said, “It shouldn’t.”

Halama didn’t think he performed that badly, indeed, he wanted only two pitches back: Those he threw to Raul Mondesi (that three-run homer in the third) and to Darrin Fletcher (solo homer in the fourth). The Fletcher clout was the only earned run off Halama, who actually saw his ERA drop from 3.60 to 3.38.

Reliever Ryan Franklin was an entirely different story. He was bad, giving up six runs, all earned, including three home runs, another one by Fletcher.

The outpouring of runs gave the Blue Jays 24 tallies in the three-game series, prompting Piniella to say the M’s would have to study the films and pitch the American League East Division co-leaders differently when the teams meet in Toronto at the end of this week.

Finding new ways to pitch the Jays might not even make a difference. This is a very dangerous team. “Look at their lineup and they’ve got some pop,” Piniella said. “They showed it.” For the series, they had eight homers, pushing their American League-leading total to 50.

The Jays’ Nos. 3-4-5 hitters went 5-for-13 with two homers and five RBI Sunday. The M’s Nos. 3-4-5 guys went hitless in nine at-bats. Proving once again that Edgar Martinez, John Olerud and Mike Cameron are very human.

When the day was done, Piniella was in a calm mood. Which in the old days might have become an eruptive mood with the wrong question after an eight-run drubbing.

A question such as: Does it mean anything that you lost your streak? The new Vanilla Piniella, rather than clearing the room, said in a controlled voice: “Did you think it would go on forever?”

Give the person asking the question one mark for courage. One for stupidity.

As for the streak of series won in succession, it ended at nine.

Will the M’s put together another one like it?

Hard to say.

The only thing we know: Another series begins Tuesday in Boston.

Weather permitting.