Trends for the M’s
Aug 31, 2012, 2:28 PM | Updated: 2:30 pm
By Gary Hill
The Seattle Mariners will again grace the grounds of Safeco Field tonight for the first of a nine game homestand. The Angels, Red Sox and A’s will all take their cracks at the M’s and their near invincibility at home. The Mariners have won 15 of their past 16 at Safeco including a clean 7 game sweep in their last homestand. The M’s struggled to start the year at home (18-29), but the recent surge has pushed them over the .500 mark (33-30). The M’s are first in ERA (2.84), Batting Average Against (.220), WHIP (1.09) OBP Against (.280) and OPS Against (.606) in all of MLB at home.
Since the All-Star break the Mariners are 28-17 overall which is good enough for a .622 winning percentage. To give you an idea of what that means, the Washington Nationals have the best record in baseball at 79-51 and that is a winning percentage of .608. Their run differential is +28 in the second half of the year. They have played two full months of very good baseball- 15-11 in July and 15-11 in August.
Their pitching has been outstanding since the break with a 3.26 ERA which is 3rd in baseball and have only been coughing up 3.4 runs a game. They are scoring 4 runs a game in the second half. They scored 3.8 runs a game in the first half and gave up 4.2. The improvement in their record in the second half has been due to a slight increase in runs scored a game and dropping runs allowed by 0.8.
