Could Mariners look to change their hitting coach amidst continued strikeout woes?

The Mariners are indeed the most strikeout prone team in the MLB, which causes a host of other issues. Playing situational baseball matters when you have a runner at third with less than two outs— do you feel confident that Cal Raleigh or Julio Rodriguez will find a way to put wood on it?

Now, to be clear, Cal is leading the MLB in homers by a catcher (11), but he's also leading everybody in strikeouts with 65, and Julio hasn't been much better (64 K's). It's up to the Mariners' leadership to decide whether it's Brant Brown or Jarrett DeHart who takes the fall, but a change needs to be made.

"“There are different shots for different counts in the at-bat and situations where these guys are all grown men. If they barreled the ball, it's going to go. And that's one of the things that we talked about -- slug is thrown, it's not hit. So if we take that under consideration, what do we need to do in the moments that we need to hit? And you have to hit it before you can slug it in the first place."

Brant Brown

I thought about Brant's quote from January as I sat in the press box watching the Mariners win on Tuesday night. It was encouraging to see the Mariners notch another W, but 14 K's in 32 AB is obviously concerning. Luis Castillo, the bullpen, and the Astros' defensive miscues won this game despite the 14K's from Seattle's lineup last night. Luke Raley struck out four times tonight, while JP struck out three times and doubled.

The other side of the K problem is the lack of walks we're seeing, stemming from chase and whiff on offspeed pitches. For example, Hunter Brown had a 50% whiff rate on his sliders last night, Abreu's was 2-4, while Presley's slider was 4-6 on whiffs. For context, Brown has a 16.7% whiff on his slider this year, a far cry from 50%. Some of this is on the players for sure, but there is something systemic going on when we see the Mariners in last place in the MLB in strikeouts again after finishing with the 2nd worst total in 2023. Please, Jerry and Scott, make a change so the lineup is ready for October ball!