Mariners Second Series vs. Los Angeles Angels: 3 Up, 3 Down

3 Down

There’s a lot of material to run with for the down, so we’ll just look at the big broad issues. We can’t fix everything today, but things need to start getting addressed. You can’t win a division in April, but you sure can lose one, and Seattle is shaping up to do just that.

Kyle Seager and Nelson Cruz

These two names are key pieces to the Mariners’ success. Any preseason prediction that had Seattle doing anything keyed on Seager and Cruz propelling the M’s to that place.

Through the first two series, their bats have been quiet. Hitting a combined 5-for-42 they will need to put it together for the Mariners to make any noise in 2017.

Casey Fien, Nick Vincent, and Evan Scribner

I wanted to rave about how good the bullpen is and I still feel that they’ve been great. Aside from these three pitchers, this bullpen is top-notch.

I can no longer refer to the bullpen as being great because Fien on the year has a 14.73 ERA, Scribner is at 21.60, and Vincent sits at 7.36. This is a huge problem for the Mariners. These are not the ERAs of relievers on a playoff team.

With Max Povse coming off a red hot spring, Jean Machi sitting at Tacoma (career line: 12-2, 3.47 ERA, and 1.14 WHIP in 189 games), and Thyago Vieira throwing heat for Arkansas, we might as well shake things up. What’s out there right now isn’t working, which brings us to our third and final down:

Scott Servais

I thought he did a great job managing last year. He handled the position like a seasoned pro, not a first-year guy. The problem is, he is out of touch with the needs of the 2017 Seattle Mariners. He needs to shake up the lineup. He needs to shake up the bullpen.

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For Pete’s sake Scott, when your team is up 9-3 and you desperately need a win, you don’t stick your worst reliever in. You don’t stick your set-up man in.

You put in Edwin “Sugar” Diaz in to face Pujols, Pennington, and Cron–three middle-bottom hitters that shouldn’t be able to touch his fastball, and even if they do, you’ve got seven runs of leeway.

Servais should under no circumstances have let the situation get out of hand just to bring Diaz in in the mop-up role. He got two outs right away, but couldn’t manage all the pressure. By then, the Angels’ momentum steamrolled the M’s.

Scott Servais needs to realize that Dipoto and the Mariners will not put up with managerial errors costing them wins for very long.

Next: The Mariners Need To Tweak The Lineup

If he wants to keep his job he needs to send some players down, shake things up, and figure it out. The M’s have Houston and Texas coming up. If they’re not back in it by the end of that, Servais may not get to see “Ichiro Day.”