Mariners offense continues to struggle in shutout loss to Phillies

At the beginning of the season, a lot of fans were feeling pretty good. The team had definitely been upgraded, and hopes were high after a strong season in 2021. The offense looked a lot better, on paper, and it truly seemed as if the Mariners would be a team that would be able to put some runs on the board.

Unfortunately, that just hasn’t been the case. Even with the additions of Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, Adam Frazier, and Julio Rodriguez, the Mariners just aren’t putting up runs.

Through the last 13 games, the Mariners have scored a paltry 33 runs, or 2.54 runs per game

That’s embarrassing, and there really isn’t another way to put it. What makes it worse is that they had two games where they scored seven runs, and another where they scored six. Some quick math shows you that in the other ten games during that stretch, they have only scored 13 runs… which is 1.3 runs per game.

Gross.

Three shutouts definitely don’t help. That gets them up to five for the season so far, meaning that they have been shutout in 29% of their losses. Essentially, every three to four games they lose, one of them will be a shutout.

As a team, they are hitting .227/.312/.374, which puts them 20th/15th/15th. Oddly, that’s kind of middle of the pack, so they should be scoring more. They’re actually 17th in strikeouts, 5th in steals, and 9th in HR. It looks a lot better than it actually is when you realize that JP Crawford is hitting .340/.435/.546 and Ty France is hitting .311/.381/.462.

A little bit more math shows us that outside of those two, the Mariners are only hitting .200/.285/.339 as a team. If you want to make it even worse, you can take out Julio. He’s actually up to .255/.319/.349, which makes him the 4th best hitter on the team, and 3rd best-qualified hitter on the team. You take him out, and the Mariners team slash line drops down to .191/.280/.338. That’s just disgusting.

Suarez and Winker are each hitting .200 on the season, and Winker just hasn’t been able to drive in many or hit many homers. I’m still optimistic that he will turn it around and start slugging at some point, as his track record of crushing righties should right itself.

Likely, the Mariners are pressing. Trying too hard to break out of the slump. It seems awful as of late, and the 9-0 drubbing by the Phillies in which the Mariners only had four hits and three walks only further accentuates the issue.

The Mariners need to break out of their slump and will have two more games against the Phillies at home to try and do so before heading back out on the road for a series against the Mets, Blue Jays, and Red Sox. If they can get the bats going a bit, and rest up on Thursday, they’ll be in a decent spot before leaving Seattle for New York. I’m still optimistic, and it’s much too early to declare defeat on the season.