Remember the good old days of April when the only thing Mariners fans had to complain about was the lack of offense?
At least the pitching was holding up, and as soon as Chone Figgins would start clicking with Ichiro at the top of the order, then all would be perfect in the Mariners’ world. Well, not quite perfect but at least four runs would get them a lot of victories.
Yeah, sure.
Four runs by the Mariners were five too few today when another nice outing by a starting pitcher, this time Jason Vargas, was undone by a bullpen that gave out hits and runs like weekend freebies at Costco. The Mariners were outscored 27-7 in the three games against the Angels and the relievers allowed all but nine of those runs. Relievers pitched 10 innings in the three games, allowing 21 hits, eight walks and 18 earned runs.
Shawn Kelley was the loser a second straight day, although this time he made the Angels hit their way out of a 4-4 tie (unlike Saturday when he couldn’t throw a strike). A misplaced two-strike slider to Mike Napoli became a two-run homer that broke the tie; Kelley wanted to bury it in the dirt, but he left it up and Napoli planted it into the right-field seats. Closer David Aardsma, the only member of the bullpen who hadn’t pitched in the series, allowed three runs in the ninth.
“We’re grinding and still working hard. It’s not a lack of effort,” Kelley said of the relievers. “We’re trying to figure it out. We’re in a slump as a whole. There are unbelievable guys in this bullpen and we’re going to fight. We’re going to turn this around quickly.”
He can’t think any other way, but I have my doubts, especially as long as Mark Lowe remains on the DL with inflammation in his lower back. When Lowe went down last month, it forced the Mariners to juggle the late-inning roles. And when the team went with a six-man pen late last month, with two of those Jesus Colome and Kanekoa Texeira, it was a setup for a meltdown.
And if you’re waiting for Lowe to get back befoer the bullpen straightens out, you may be waiting a long time. He still can’t walk completely upright and when asked how he felt, he replied with one word.
“Miserable,” Lowe said.
Manager Don Wakamatsu has said the past several days that Lowe could wake up any morning and feel great again because, he said, that’s how it works with the two epidurals Lowe has undergone. Lowe, in fact, said he expects to wake up every morning feeling miserable.
“That way when I don’t feel better, I’m not disappointed,” he said
Sad to say, that seems to be the overall feeling about the Mariners right now. Why get your hopes up when there are so few indications that a turnaround is possible?
After a nice series against the AL Central-leading Twins last week, the Mariners were hammered by the Angels in a way that showed who’s on the rise and who’s not in the AL West.
Like Lowe said, it’s miserable.
And that’s not even taking into account the offense, which is getting guys on base but has proven incapable of stringing together enough hits to score them. Can’t somebody, at some time, hit a three-run homer? Jose Lopez did it the other night to beat the Twins, but the Mariners are woefully incapable of it even on a semi-regular basis, especially from a left-handed hitter who can reach the reachable right-field seats at Safeco Field.
Milton Bradley isn’t doing it, and Casey Kotchman is defining the term “defensive specialist” at first base in a way that’s not flattering anymore. Yes, he’s great at preventing runs with his excellence in the field, but at some point the Mariners have got to get some pop at first base, and at some point they’ve got to decide that it won’t come from Kotchman. Mike Carp, a guy the organization seems to have forgotten, is down at Class AAA Tacoma with 10 homers and 31 RBI, and this month he’s batting .400 with a 1.055 OPS.
Bringing a guy like Carp aboard won’t be easy from a roster standpoint. Who goes down? I don’t see the Mariners operating with six relievers anytime soon, so the other possibilities are deciding that Mike Sweeney is a DL candidate with his back problem or that Matt Tuiasosopo’s versatility doesn’t bring that much value considering the current need.
The Mariners are at a critical point in the season, with four games this week at division-rival Texas followed by six at San Diego and St. Louis where the offense will be diluted even more without the DH.
The way this team is constructed, it’s not working.
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