The Biggest Reason The Seattle Mariners Are Winning Again

I think you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who is disappointed with the Mariners’ performance right now. At times it feels like a minor miracle that they are even close to .500, nevermind second place in the west.

There’s no doubt about it, the Mariners are actually a baseball team again. Regardless of any future losing streaks, the Mariners have beaten some very good teams lately.

What’s fueled this recent success? How come the Seattle Mariners are winning again? Has there been any indication of this in recent years? As it turns out, last year was a very good indicator of this season’s success.

As of May 12th last season, the Mariners were 18-20. Certainly not terrible, and only two losses worse than they sit currently at 20-18. But there’s one major difference between these two lines. One-run ball games.

One-run games were the bane of the Mariners’ existence last year, in their first 38 games of 2013, the Mariners had already lost six games by only one run. Over the entire season the Mariners lost a ridiculous twenty eight games by only one run.

In a season that ended with the Mariners barely above 70 wins, there were nearly thirty that were left on the table, only one hit away from victory. During April of last year they also won 5 games by only one run. Put it this way, in only 38 games to start the 2013 season, 11 were decided by only one run.

The current Mariners aren’t on the same road to destruction though. They’ve so far lost only 2 games by one run. On the flip side, they’ve won 5.

What does this say? The Mariners are converting close games. In the exact same amount of time, the Mariners have managed to shave off four losses from last year’s sample. Over the season that equates to just over 16 more wins than last season.

How are they able to do this? There are a few reasons.

May 12, 2014; Seattle, WA, USA; Seattle Mariners first baseman Justin Smoak (17) hits a two-run home unr against the Tampa Bay Rays during the eighth inning at Safeco Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Run Support

The Mariners are finally getting some. This was a big issue for the M’s during that nasty 8-game skid in April. At this time last year (2013) the Mariners had scored only 135 runs, nearly thirty less than their running 2014 total at 164.

The math on this is pretty simple, an average of one more run per game has converted those one-run losses into ties and/or wins. At a very minimum the Mariners are giving themselves a chance to win those close games. (Yes, I know, 12 of those runs came last night, but lets call those make-up runs for scoring only 18 during the losing streak).

Baseball-Reference also has this cool little tool that tells me how many games the Mariners have won or lost by blowout so far this year too. A blowout being 5 or more runs. In this season, the Mariners are winning more of those than losing. Something that hasn’t happened since…hold onto your hats…2005.

Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

Closing Pitching

I’m hesitant to add this in, because I don’t love riding the Fernando Rodney Express. You can’t argue with results I guess.

Rodney is currently tied for the AL lead in saves with 11 so far this season. He’s only tallied one blown save on the season, even though he’s given up 15 hits in 15.2 innings of work.

It’s commonplace for Rodney to put one or two runners on before closing out the game. It’s a roller coaster for sure.

I remain hesitantly optimistic about acquiring Fernando Rodney, If you want to live on the edge of your seat, check out Ryan Divish’s twitter feed whenever Rodney comes into the game. There’s a lot of distrust going down there.

One of the reasons I’m skeptical is because at this time last year the Mariners again had a closer with 10 saves. Tom Wilhelmsen had already notched 10 saves by May 12th in the 2013 season, and, well, we all know how that ended.

Even starting pitching has been great for the M’s. Which is surprising because the Mariners started the season with a decimated rotation. The Mariners are currently 4th overall in the AL ERA with 3.61 (as a team), almost a half run below the AL average of 4.05.

Compare that to last year’s total ERA of 4.31. Pitching seems to be improved thus far. To be completely honest, the return of James Paxton and Taijuan Walker, while welcome, may not contribute to as many wins as we expect.

Pitching is already solid with this team (disregarding a few dud starts from Brandon Maurer and Erasmo Ramirez, those are bound to happen time to time).