Mariners offense is making it too easy for opposing arms in 1 specific way

The first three games of the Astros series have revived an otherwise comatose Mariners lineup. They've scored 23 runs against Houston thus far, accounting for more than one-third of their run total for the season. Players are finally starting to heat up and they even got their first electric moment of the year from none other than J.P. Crawford.

But despite this resurgence, the team still has lots to do before they live up to the hype of their preseason power rankings. There are plenty of flaws in their current offensive approach, but perhaps the most glaring issue is that they haven't been able to hit strikes.

The Mariners have the worst zone contact rate of any MLB team

Z-Contact% is defined as the percentage of pitches in the zone with which hitters make contact. A high Z-Contact% indicates that hitters are at least touching the ball with their bat frequently, while a low Z-Contact% suggests that they're getting beat in the zone, either because they're whiffing or not swinging at all. For the Mariners, the former seems to be the main culprit.

Seattle's Z-Contact% of 79.6 places them dead last in MLB, nearly 10 percentage points lower than the league-leading Tampa Bay Rays. Their overall contact rate of 70.9 is also dead last by an even wider margin, but their swing percentage of 45.8 is right around league-average, giving the team a swinging-strike rate of 13.2, worse than all teams except for the Colorado Rockies and Athletics.

At this time, it's important to highlight that swinging strike percentage is a similar but different statistic from whiff percentage. Both figures measure the amount of swing-and-miss for a given hitter, but swinging strike is a percentage of total pitches whereas whiff rate is a percentage of total swings.

On an individual level, the players who have struggled the most with whiffs are also the ones that have been on a noticeable cold stretch — Julio Rodríguez (17.3), Cal Raleigh (17.9), Josh Naylor (11.6) and Luke Raley (27.4) lead qualified Mariners in the statistic.

This simplifies the job of opposing pitchers immensely. Lineups that make constant contact without much power still add an element of entropy to each batted ball, especially if the style of hitting comes with speed. Lineups that chase pitches outside of the zone, but punish lazy strikes are immensely dangerous when they get ahead in the count.

A lineup that's at the bottom of the league in terms of being able to touch any strikes simply isn't very potent. If you're able to throw strikes with some level of consistency (and if you're a big-leaguer, you likely can), attacking Seattle's hitters in the zone doesn't come with nearly as much risk as other hitters.

It's still early in the season, but that hasn't stopped players like Julio from making at least some adjustments to their approach. Additional changes may be in store, especially if players like Cal Raleigh and Josh Naylor seem unable to shake off the early season rust.

The underwhelming results have already negatively affected the team's postseason chances. If Seattle wants to get back on the horse, they'll have to make things a little more difficult for opposing pitchers.