What’s wrong with the Mariners bats through the first week of the season?

The Mariners bats have been struggling so far this season. That’s obvious to anyone who has been watching or listening to them play. Through six games, they’ve only managed to score 16 runs, which is the 4th lowest total in baseball and the third-lowest per game.

What’s going on with the Mariners offense so far?

Part of this is the weird “unicorn” stuff that has been going on. Deep fly balls that would be out in nearly every other stadium in baseball, the wind knocking down MULTIPLE home runs that would’ve been out in a bunch of places, including Seattle.

It’s not just Jarred Kelenic that has been struggling. Look through the entire Mariners lineup, and there just aren’t that many players that are doing well. As a team, they are slashing .191/.284/.312. That’s 28th/24th/28th. Through 7 games, they have just five home runs and two stolen bases. Extrapolate that out, and they would’ve been 29th in HR and 24th in SB last year with those numbers.

Maybe it’s the cold weather. For comparison, other than the homer-happy game, Minnesota’s offense has been pretty awful as well. Even the White Sox have relied a lot on the long ball to score against the Mariners having already hit four in the first two games. (Yes, I know the Mariners have lost a bunch of homers to the wind with their opponents still hitting them. Baseball is weird.)

There’s also one other factor. It “should” still be Spring Training. You’ve got a team with a large amount of A) Young guys or B) New faces. Maybe they weren’t able to get the same kind of work in during the offseason that they normally would with the lockout and uncertainty about where they would be. Yes, everyone is facing the same scenario with prep time, but with the Mariners odd combination of a short Spring AND the bad weather, it sort of makes sense.

Or, and this is the one that I think it really is, it’s baseball. Plain and simple. It’s been a rough week, and it happens to teams. Sometimes it’s in the middle of June, the end of August, the playoffs (I’ve heard of this magical event), or the beginning of the season.

The Mariners will turn things around. Suarez and Winker have been hitting the ball hard. The team will get home and get comfortable, and simply start putting the bat to the ball more often. Yes, it’s been a rough week, but I don’t think that we need to worry. The bats are going to heat up, and when it does… it’s going to be fun. Go Mariners!