Drayer: Mariners begin ‘rabbit-out-of-hat’ week
May 23, 2017, 8:02 AM | Updated: 10:30 am
Late last week on the postgame show, ROOT Sports analyst and former Mariners third baseman Mike Blowers talked about the importance of getting back to .500, or near .500, by the end of the month. My immediate reaction was: “No, not .500! Bad things happen when this club hits the .500 mark!”
Now, granted, this was at the end of a long day and there wasn’t a ton of reason going into my thinking, but there was still a bit of shell shock associated with .500 after what happened the one – and only – time the Mariners got there this year. Two offensive explosions in Philly were followed by being on the wrong end of a four-game sweep in Toronto. The roller coaster was nothing new – the team had been on it since starter Felix Hernandez and outfielder Mitch Haniger went down in late April. But this time, the roller coaster appeared to dip so low there couldn’t possibly be a rebound. And yet, the Mariners went on to win three of their next four games. The roller coaster somehow managed to stay on track.
Now the big challenge: Keep the roller coaster on the tracks after the team’s worst offensive performance over any three-day period this season. The M’s scored just three runs in three days against the White Sox, not too far separated from the six runs over four games in Toronto. It’s bad timing as the team heads into a road trip that features three games against the Nationals, which leads the NL in runs per game at 5.72, three with the Red Sox and four against Colorado – two more clubs that have no problem putting runs on the board.
The Mariners pitching staff will face its biggest challenge yet. If May was the month of “hang on,” the final week will be rabbit-out-of-hat territory.
There should be some help on the offensive end of things. Robinson Cano is expected back for Game 1 and Mike Zunino has been recalled from Tacoma. With Cano sidelined with a bad quad, the team went just 3-8. As for Zunino, his call-up may be a bit rushed, but the intention was to make a small change to his swing and approach – not a complete tear down like a year ago. Honestly, at this point, with what we have seen offensively from Mariners catchers this year, any improvement from Zunino would be significant.
As for the pitching, it does not appear we will see lefty James Paxton’s return on this trip. Paxton is with the team, along with his fellow injured starters: Hernandez, Drew Smyly and Hisashi Iwakuma. All are throwing now and need to be watched by trainers. Paxton is expected to make his return in one of the home games against the Rockies.
Looking for anything encouraging in the pitching department? Well, the starters in the first three games of the road trip are coming off starts in which they surrendered one or fewer runs. Never mind if you can name those pitchers or not. That is not important in rabbit-out-of-hat week.
In all, there is a tough and important week ahead for the Mariners, who will finally have a favorable schedule the following week and hopefully the return of a couple key players. The roller coaster may be at full throttle now, but the approach will be the same: One game at a time.
