2011 Seattle Mariners: Ichiro Suzuki and 5 Reasons the M's Have Enough Offense
Take away a Justin Smoak eighth-inning home run and the first three innings of Game 1 against the Baltimore Orioles, and the Seattle Mariners would have wasted three terrific pitching performances.
The M's offense has looked 2010-esque over the past few games, and even though the pitching staff continues to exceed expectations, there has to be worries as to whether or not Seattle can keep up its winning ways.
They've managed to play .500 baseball over 55 games, however, so they seem to be doing something right. So even though the Mariners currently rank last in the American League in most major offensive categories, they—amazingly—still have the tools to compete for a playoff spot.
Reinforcements in AAA
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You've probably heard of the legend that is Dustin Ackley. As soon as he gets his glove right at second base, he's going to add some much needed hitting to both the infield and the beginning of the lineup.
Ackley is only hitting .393 over the last 15 days. The power numbers are nothing special, but he still walks more than he strikes out, and would be a perfect fit for the No. 2 spot in between Ichiro and Justin Smoak.
Move over to left field—where the Mariners have seemingly always had offensive struggles—and you've got Mike Carp waiting down in Tacoma. Seattle Times' Geoff Baker makes a short, yet compelling argument for Carp, and you've got to agree with him.
Carp, who has four homers over the last week, is hitting .317 on the year with 14 dingers. You're not going to get much worse defensively than Peguero in left field, and offensively, Carp is putting up better numbers across the board than Peguero was at Tacoma. Might be time for a change.
Ichiro Suzuki
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It's tough to get your offense going when your leadoff hitter is struggling like Ichiro has been.
The career .329 hitter is off to a slow start this year, hitting just .272 with nine extra-base hits. There are signs, however, that Ichiro, at 37, can still turn things around.
According to fangraphs, Ichiro is currently sporting a batting average on balls in play (BAbip) of a career low—by almost 30 points—.290. BAbip is often see as an indicator of luck, meaning that so far this year, Ichiro has been fairly unlucky by his standards.
Throw in the fact the Ichiro is seeing the ball just as well as past years—career bests in walk and strikeout rates, average line drive rate, average contact rate—and you have signs that the leadoff hitter is bound to turn things around soon.
The only real reason for a regression is that he is getting fewer pitches to hit. He is seeing only 42 percent of pitches in the strike zone, the lowest of his career.
Call it the Chone Figgins factor.
As Brendan Ryan and possibly Dustin Ackley start protecting Ichiro a little better, he should get more pitches to hit.
Chone Figgins
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I know what you're thinking.
"How can a guy hitting .190 be part of the answer to a poor offense?"
Well, it's because manager Eric Wedge is finally realizing the same thing.
Wedge saw the same problems in second baseman Jack Wilson earlier this season and started giving him days off. This was effective for two reasons. One, Wilson had some time by himself to think over his struggles. Two, he found himself much more motivated as he was suddenly deep in a position battle with Adam Kennedy.
Motivational tactics might just be the best way to fix the Chone Figgins problem. Put him back in the nine spot. Give him days off. Make him compete with Luis freaking Rodriguez, who's hitting a stellar .175. Tell him he's terrible. Maybe, just maybe, it will work, because nothing else has.
I'm not saying this is going to fix this offense. But Wedge has begun these tactics in the last week, and it seems to be a step in the right direction.
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Timely Hitting
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The Mariners don't get a lot of hits, but they seem to get them when necessary, as seen by Justin Smoak's game winning three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning Tuesday night.
This team looks like the poor man's version of the 2001 M's. They don't have lots of firepower or many big names, but they know what they want with each at-bat, and they work for it.
Trading for another hitter could very well be a waste, because one decent power hitter isn't going to help. This team is built perfectly how it is. If the M's want to add firepower, they'll need to change their whole identity, and there's no point in doing that right now.
A power hitter who also has patience? Now that's a different story, but still might be too expensive to acquire. Just don't go add a Mark Reynolds-type player, because it won't help.
Go add an on-base specialist for left field or a utility bench man for cheap. Fine.
But don't break the bank for a power hitter. It's not going to work. Remember Richie Sexson and Adrian Beltre? Yeah, me neither.
The Mariners offense was built to produce exactly how it's producing.
And it's working. They can contend just fine without trading.
Pitching
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It's been beat to death as of late, so I won't spend a lot of time on this. The Mariners' pitching staff is putting up really, really ridiculously good-looking numbers.
The starters are boasting a 3.30 ERA, good for fourth in the majors. Those numbers are even better over the last month, too.
Its a little crazy, but the Mariners can make the playoffs scoring four runs per game, and with a few in-house tweaks to the lineup, they can produce just that.
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