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With the month of May in the books, the Mariners are now 59 games into the season. They find themselves not only with a record above .500 but sitting atop the suddenly weak-looking AL West. They're in the midst of what should be a very winnable series against the Los Angeles Angels, and the hardest part of the season should be behind them.
Based on win percentage, the Mariners should be in for a strong second half, with their opponent's record sitting lower than any other team in baseball. We will get into that more in the June Preview that comes out later this weekend. For now, though, let's look at what we learned about this team in the month of May.
The hitting struggles are real
It can be truly disheartening to watch this team hit. You don't even have to go very far back in your memory banks to be reminded, as the Mariners saw their lineup get diced up by Spencer Arighetti, the Astros rookie who came into the game with an ERA above 5, as well as a BAA on his fastball of over .350.
Yet, he had his way with their lineup, looking more like Verlander than a rookie. The Mariners hit just .174 against the Astros, and saw their season slash line drop to an embarrassing .221/.295/.361 which ranks 28th/27th/25th in baseball. I don't care how good your pitching is, it's unacceptable.
Take a look at some of the slash lines that we are seeing from players on the team who are getting a lot of ABs, enough to be considered regular starters to the team. Grab a puke bowl, you might need it.
Cal Raleigh - .205/.279/.415
Ty France - .249/.313/.381
Mitch Haniger - .218/.278/.351
Mitch Garver - .166/.277/.306
Jorge Polanco - .195/.293/.302
JP Crawford - .208/.301/.328
Cal gets a pass as a catcher who plays darn good defense and hits bombs. Everyone else, though, needs to pick it up. This isn't even including Luis Urias, who was hitting .152/.264/.316, before getting sent down.
You cannot have your first baseman slugging under .400 while playing bad defense. Your RF can't be slower than a senior citizen while slugging the weight of a defensive tackle. Then you have your DH, who's literally job description is to be a hitter, slugging a rate that makes for a low OBP. It's embarrassing. If the Mariners keep hitting like this, it is going to catch up to them in a bad way.
OH! I didn't even address the strikeout problem. The Mariners lead baseball with 594 strikeouts from their hitters, and lead the league in strikeout rate as well. A bad slash line topped off with a ton of strikeouts? Yeah, that's not going to work.