Baseball is a crazy game and when you think you have it all figured out it humbles you.
I run into some of the same people that predicted the Mariners would finish last this season yet they
are asking What’s wrong with the Mariners ?

By Amaury Pi-GonzálezWe are closing in to the end of May and nobody in the A.L West is really setting the mark for
“excellence”. This smallest of divisions with only
four teams is a puzzle right now.

The Mariners spent big bucks last season when
they signed Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre.
Sexon was his usual self in 2005 when he finished
with .263 average 39 home runs and 121 RBI
with 167 strike outs. But Beltre was not as productive, with a .255 average 19 home runs and
87 RBI. Beltre’s pace is for an ever worse type
of season in 2006 and Sexson has to ‘pick it
up’very soon or he will not even reach the numbers
he had in 2005.

Adrian Beltre had a great World Baseball Classic
with the Dominican Republic team and I thought
that great hitting would carry over to (at least)the start of the season. His average has gone up but still barely over the ‘mendoza line’ not what you
should expect from him.

Ichiro Susuki is the best leadoff hitter in baseball
and one of baseball’s biggest stars on his way to his sixth consecutive 200-hit season and another Gold Glove in right field, his 6th. Ichiro is the
record holder for most hits in a MLB season when he had 262 in 2004. Yet the Mariners cannot take advantage of all those hits because their offense
has not been what they expected.

The Mariners signed free agent Carl Everett and he has done what is expected of him. With the World
Champion Chicago White Sox in 2005 Carl(THe Truth)Everett hit 23 home runs and drove in 87
runs playing in 135 games. Raúl Ibañez is one of
the most consistent Mariners hitting around .300
and good for around 20 home runs and between 80 to 90 RBI each season.

The best news for the Mariners is their new young double play combination of Yuniesky Betancourt at
short and José López at second. These are young exciting players that are close friends on and off
the field and are doing a superb job for this team.
López(who also played some third base and shortstop last season) is leading all second basemen in RBI in the A.L as of this day and
playing solid defense up the middle.

Then comes the first Japanese catcher to make it to the major leagues Kenji Johjima. Jo still has to learn the major leagues. He won 7 Gold Gloves in
Japan and was a very good hitter but in the major
leagues things are much different, he tends to call more curveballs (something normal for him because that is the game they play in Japan), so we have to give him time, he is a Rookie catcher
after all.

Mariners starting pitching has not been the problem, Moyer,Washburn,Piñeiro,Meche have done very well, as well as it could have been
expected. This is not Soccer, there are no ties
in baseball and the M’S starters have suffered of lack of run support, since in the A.L the pitchers
do not hit,all they can do is pitch and hope the
team gives them support.

Félix Hernández is on his first full season and he-at 20 years of age- should be pitching in the minors but the Mariners wanted him to taste major league hitting and he is having problems this season. That
is understandable, since in 2005 he only pitched
84 innings. Félix should get better and better and eventually be a #1 starter, hopefully with the Mariners for the people in Seattle that have seen
guys like Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez and
Ken Griffey Jr leave town. What good is to plant the seed if the fruit will be picked by somebody else?

An organization should never become arrogant and think they know everything. After the Mariners won
116 games in 2001 a friend in Seattle told me “they thought they were going to be like this for years and they learn in a hurry that baseball humbles you when you think you know it all”.

Yes, the Mariners were very good. From 2000 until
2003 they never won less than 91 games. The old
guard, guys like Edgar Martínez, John Olerud, Bret Boone and Dan Wilson left (retirement,other teams)
and the people in Seattle who watched a team
of high caliber have been relegated to watch a
last place team that has lost 99 and 93 games
in 2004 and 2005. This is a drastic change for
anybody. Attendance in Seattle is getting smaller
and smaller, I have witnessed the lowest attendances in the history of Safeco Field(since it
was inaugurated in 1999)we are talking 16,000 to
17,000 people per game not what the braintrust
of this franchise was used to. You can promote and promote and promote and give bubbleheads until the sky turns yellow, but winning is the best
medice for attendance, unless you do not have
a great place to play (i.e. Oakland) but at Safeco when people are not coming in, you know there is a problem.

We know what colorful Athletics owner Charlie O.Finley used to say ” money talks and BS walks”
when corporations experience these type of decline in the gate thinks tend to get tense, on edge and
frustration settles in.

Seattle starting pitching is among the top five in the league at this time and their bullpen inconsistences
with closer Eduardo Guardado blowing up a few times and coming out as a “set up”man recently,
it looks like the winds are changing in Seattle.

How much confidence does Mariners management will show on manager Mike Hardgrove ? He is only on his second season after Bob Melvin was there for
a couple following the great Lou Piniella, arguably the best manager in Seattle Mariners franchise and
who was in Seattle for a decade. Lou still very popular in Seattle and he should be.

Willie Bloomquist(local kid)is one of the most popular utility players I have ever seen. He is a nice player, he stole 19 consecutive bases(from 2005 to 2006) but he is a utility player. Sometimes Bloomquist hits second in the lineup and López hits
8th. José López has been the most productive
hitter in the Mariners lineup this year so far and
he is doing fine hitting in the second spot after
Ichiro.

Prior to the first of a three game series in Oakland I asked Mariners manager Mike Hardgrove
-When(who many games)would you know what type of a team you have this season ?
He told me “around 50 games”. Well, we are getting very close to the 50 game mark of the season for the Mariners.

The best news for the Mariners is that they are
only 4 1/2 games out of first place, if they were in the Central Division it would be all over, something like 15 games out, but reality will settle in very quick when we see that to be a contender you have to beat teams like Oakland and Texas, something the Mariners have not been able to do. During this road trip the Mariners took 2 of 3 from the Angels
and last season they swept the Division Champions
in Anaheim during a 4 game series ! You tell me.

Time will tell and very soon we will know if these
are the same Mariners that lost 93 games last season or is this a much more competitive Mariners team. We all know they are underachieving.
The time of truth is coming soon. One thing that
puzzles me is that this Mariners team does have
talent, this is not the Kansas City Royals.