Mariners Disappointing First Month

            Well the Mariners got swept by the White Sox. 2 of the 3 games ended with a walk off homerun; first it was Andrew Jones who is recreating his career. That was against Mark Lowe. Then it was Alex Rios with a 2 run shot against David Aardsma who in that inning gave up both his first and second home runs of the year. That was David’s first blown save of the year and broke his 16 save streak dating back to last year.

            Those three losses put the Mariners back under .500 at 9-10. All this coming right after they had a 3 game winning streak and winning 5 of their last 6 games. Sure that win streak came completely in the series against Baltimore but the other 2 wins were against Detroit who came to Seattle red hot.

            Many people have said that if the Mariners are going to have a chance this year they need to end April above 500. To do that they would need to go 3-1 against Kansas City who are coming into this series at 7-11 but have a very hot Jose Guillen who can help then beat his former team in Kansas City. Their last game of April is opening a series against the Texas Rangers and it is expected to be Cliff Lee’s Mariner debut.

            Cliff is one of the reasons that people say the Mariners just need to get out of April at 500. Well him and Erik Bedard who won’t be back in action for a while. The only question with Cliff coming back is who the odd man out in the rotation is. Personally I want it to be Ian Snell, nothing against him but I just don’t like the way he pitches. But without a left handed relief pitcher at this point it looks like it will be Jason Vargas who has pitched great as of late.

            The person who has been carrying this team so far is Franklin Gutierrez. He is on an absolute tear to start the season but the rest of the offense has been almost dead until the games against Detroit and Baltimore when Casey Kotchman has started coming alive. The mariners will really need to start having some more offense because you cannot expect 1 or 2 guys to hold up a team. Obviously Ichiro has been hitting lately and will keep doing so but that’s still 3 guys. Milton Bradley has been out lately and Jack Wilson was out for a couple games but it’s not like either of them were doing that amazing offensively and Erik Byrnes does better than Bradley in the field anyway.

            I think that the Mariners will end up doing very well this season but considering all the moves they made in the off-season I would consider this first month to be a very disappointing move for a team that has many new players and big names who people thought would produce.