Mariners Analysis: One-Run Games Hurting M’s In First Half

Close games have not been kind to the Mariners so far this season.

The Mariners have just completed the first half the 2016 season with a 45-44 record. More than one-third of those games have been decided by one run- 31 to be exact- and in those games the team is 13-18.

No team goes into a season wishing that games be won or lost by the smallest margin possible (one run) but for the Mariners, from the first game of the season, it was necessary to accept that it may be a frequent outcome during the year. It was indeed a crushing one-hit loss to the Texas Rangers, 3-2 on Opening Day that set the tone for the year. Unfortunately the next couple of one-run affairs would be equally disappointing.

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When the Mariners came back to Safeco Field for their home-opener, they would encounter to the same fate. This time to their other AL West rivals, the Oakland Athletics. Just two days later they would lose again to the A’s by a single run, but this time the Mariners would give up the lead and the game in extra-innings. It was only later that week that each of the next four games (two against the New York Yankees and two against the Indians) when one-run games truly became a theme.

Four consecutive games (with one day of rest in between) saw the Mariners win once and lose once against the Yanks and Indians. None the matches had the thrill of the previous close battles, but were still blood pressure-raising games in which the M’s experienced the highs and lows or close call wins and near-victory losses. What was very clear is that in just the first month the M’s would play a handful of close games and end April with a 4-5 record in one-run ballgames.

May would start off on better footing, as the M’s pulled of four straight on-run games to start the month. Two of those wins came in extra-innings and one was a walk-off home run by Chris Iannetta to beat the Tampa Rays. Yet, as the month went on things would flip on its head. The Mariners would finish off May losing back-to-back one-run games at home against the Minnesota Twins, who at the time had the worst record in baseball. By the turn of June the Mariners were now 10-8 in one-run games.

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In June, aside from just the pitching, it was the one-run games that ruined their standing in the AL West. They would be defeated seven times in a row in that scenario. Unluckily for the Mariners three of the seven losses would be in walk-off fashion. The did get one of those wins back by beating the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 off and Adam Lind three-run blast to win it in the bottom of the ninth. But that was a small band-aid for a big wound created by one win games. Their 2-7 record in that month brought their once above .500 record down to .400 with an 12-15 mark.

The trend didn’t fade in the first half of July before the All-Star break; three total losses- including a walk-off loss- and just one win would spell more trouble for the Mariners who were now at 13-18 in those one-run games. Those eighteen one-run loses in the first half of the season are the most by any team in baseball. If the Mariners wish to make it in to the playoffs, this is yet another piece of the puzzle they will have to solve to get there.