Salk: Two things need to happen for Mariners in second half

As the Seattle Mariners get ready to start the second half of their season, let’s face it, they got work to do.

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The product that they put out there in the first half of the season was subpar. It wasn’t what we all expected, and it certainly wasn’t what they expected of themselves.

This is a team that had no problems using the words World Series throughout spring training. They know what the expectations are and they know that they didn’t meet them in the first half of the year. Heck, they finished 3 1/2 games behind their pace at this point last year. So yeah, they’ve got work to do.

What needs to happen in the second half? Well, let’s keep it pretty simple.

Number one, their best players need to play better. We all know that. Cal Raleigh is nowhere near the player that he was last year. Josh Naylor and Julio Rodríguez right behind him. They need their best players to play like that. They don’t have a plan for those three guys not being three of the best players on the team. So that’s the easiest.

Number two, and this might be the second most important, they gotta play clean. They gotta concentrate. They gotta be focused. They gotta show up at 6:40 or 7:10 p.m. or whatever time the game starts ready to play that night, that day, whatever. They need to be in game mode. That means not throwing the ball around the infield. It means limiting the errors. It means fewer mental mistakes. Yes, the decision making from the manager is a part of that. It has to get better. Their margin for error is not so great that they can afford to make the kind of mistakes that they have made.

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Now if they can do those two things, honestly, it will probably take care of a lot of the other little problems. But that means the chemistry needs to be good enough for them to be able to look each other in the eyes and say, “here’s what we need to do to get better. Here’s what I need to do. Here’s what you need to do. Here’s how we hold each other accountable.”

From the outside, the chemistry this year has not been as good as it was last year. So whatever needs to be done to get everyone on the same page to eliminate some of the public incidents that we’ve seen, to get to a point where they can all hold each other accountable and get the best out of themselves, well, that should then take care of the first two things, and now you got the Mariner team in the second half we all thought we should see.

This post is a transcript of the video at the top of the post. It is edited for clarity. Catch Mike Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

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