Mariners Twitter's self-deprecating joke after Padres beatdown hiding a growing fear

People of a certain vintage will remember a scene from the 1992 movie A Few Good Men, when Tom Cruise's character sums up receiving some bad news by saying: "And the hits just keep on coming!" Well, that quote came to mind during the Seattle Mariners' Thursday afternoon's bloodbath in Peoria at the hands of the San Diego Padres.

It was brutal as the Padres totalled 28 hits and 27 runs in an utter 27-6 annihilation. And even though former M's manage Scott Servais is too classy to say anything, it would be no surprise if he was sitting somewhere in San Diego's facilities having a quiet chuckle to himself.

The 27 runs scored are the most ever in a Cactus League game since MLB began tracking games 20 years ago, but the Mariners did their best — and impressively so — to find some humor within the dire situation:

People commented about how the 27-6 final reads like a football score. And in keeping with this and the humor surrounding the situation, Mariners info guru Alex Mayer also took to social media to advise the last time a Seattle sports team was involved in a 27-6 scoreline in the state of Arizona, it was courtesy of the Sehawks when they beat the Cardinals back in 2002.

Mariners manager Dan Wilson gives the jokes a miss

At the same time, credit to Mariners manager Dan Wilson for not going out there and yucking it up when speaking to the media after the Padres game. As per Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times, there wasn't much humor in Wilson's voice when he said:

"That was one for the ages. ... Obviously the wind (played) a factor today for both sides. It cost us a lot of base runners, extra outs and a lot of extra hitters, and they were able to take advantage of it."

Dan Wilson

In many ways the 27-6 loss to the Padres serves as the poster child for what has been an ugly spring training so far for the Mariners. They're now on a six-game losing streak and as of Friday morning sit at the bottom of the Cactus League standings with a 3-9 record. (Or 3-9-1 if you include the 8-8 tie versus the Kansas City Royals.)

In addition, the 114 runs the Mariners have allowed are the most in spring training among all 30 Major League teams. And before anyone points out that this is what can happen when you allow 27 runs in a game, consider that prior to the Padres rout the 87 combined runs they had given up were still the highest.

Yes we appreciate it is spring training and half of the Mariners roster is off playing in the World Baseball Classic. However, most of those players only left at the end of February to join their respective countries and every other team has also had to deal (to varying degrees) with losing talented players for the international tournament.

At the end of the day, even in spring training the bar still needs to be reasonably high, especially for genuine World Series hopefuls like the Mariners. We'll forgo using any strong language so as to spare you fine readers, but what happened on Thursday in Peoria was just not acceptable and we can only hope it provides a collective kick up the backside to help refocus the organization. It is so much better than what they showed against the Padres.