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3 things we learned about the Mariners from the month of May
With the month of May behind us, it's time to look at how the second month of the season went for the Mariners
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.
Julio might just be turning back into JULIO
I have to believe we are starting to see a turnaround from Julio. He was striking out less in May all the while hitting the ball harder, seeing his exit velo and hard hit rate both increase to around his career average, if not a bit better. While it's not yet what this team needs from their leader, his May slash line of .281/.322/.370 was a lot better than we saw to start the year.
It's the power that we need to see from Julio, which is sneaking out at times but nowhere near what is needed. Julio has a paltry 9 XBH this season. I swear that Aaron Judge has done that in a series this year, and that's Julio's totals through May 30th.
It's not going to be good enough to just turn in a slash line like that though. Yeah, .280 is a good batting average in today's game, well above the league average. It's actually about his career average of .279. The OBP is a bit low compared to his .338 career average. It's the SLG though, that is sitting 125 points below his career average.
We've seen him start hitting the ball hard, and hitting it hard more often. For the Mariners to be able to succeed this season, they are going to need Julio to find that power again.
The health of the bullpen will determine if they make a deadline move
This is the one that I honestly think that the season hinges on. Things looked so good to start the season, with a three-headed monster of Brash-Santos-Munoz. We haven't even seen Santos yet, but it sounds like he is getting ready to make his debut at some point in late June or early July, as the team is being very cautious with his recovery.
Brash is out for the year with Tommy John, so it left Munoz to the heavy lifting. He's on pace for a career high in innings, and the team needs to make sure to not overwork Munoz, both for the short term and the long term. The rest of the team has stepped up though, and they are sitting with the 7th best ERA for relievers in baseball.
Think about that for a minute. That's with Saucedo missing a decent amount of time, and rotating through a handful of waiver pickups, castoffs, and AAA guys. If they can start getting healthy, with Saucedo staying healthy (was a freak injury and he's back already), it's going to be a big plus for the team.
It's more than that though. It's those pickups. Being able to ride the hot arm long enough. We've already seen 13 pitchers filter through the Mariners bullpen, and that's not counting the two innings that Josh Rojas has thrown for them. If they stay healthy going forward, they'll probably ride with what they have.
If anyone goes down, a two-piece move for a hitter and a pitcher could definitely be a move that Dipoto and Hollander would make. The bullpen has done great and has been overperforming. Health and riding the hot hand could work, but a nice piece would go a long way to giving them more high-end options to fight for the AL West title.