Mariners first quarter grades: A wild assortment of success and failure

It's been a wierd season so far for the Mariners. After the rough start, I think most fans are happy about where the team is at right now, record wise. We may not feel warm and fuzzy about how the team is performing overall, but we have to be happy with the fact that they're not just above .500, but sitting atop the AL West.

This isn't going to be a team grade, but we will probably still have a rough one at the end of the article after looking through the different parts of the team. The quarter mark is a good one, to me at least, for taking stock of how the team is doing up to that point. You can make an argument to do it more often, say every 20 games or so, but it's a long season, and things change quickly.

Let's take a look at the four major aspects of the team, and how they all grade out throughout the first quarter of the season. The infield, outfield, starting rotation, and the bullpen. Let's start off with the infield, the one that has seen the most change, and not just since the end of 2023, but since the start of 2024.