Suddenly hot Brennen Davis might be exactly the guy Mariners need after all

It's been better lately, but we're all still waiting for the Mariners offense to click. That may not happen until the right-handed bats start doing their job, and that unit felt a man short even before Victor Robles went on the injured list.

Meanwhile, Brennen Davis has shrugged off a cold start for Triple-A Tacoma and is now turning baseballs into pulp.

After starting late because of a hamstring strain and then going 4-for-30 out of the gate, the erstwhile Cubs prospect is 14-for-37 with four home runs in his last nine games. He has a .915 OPS overall, which closely tracks with his performance in the Yankees system last season.

There are, like, a million caveats that come with believing in Davis as any kind of solution. Even though he's just 26 years old and has never played in the majors, he feels like a guy who's over the hill. He was last considered an elite prospect four years ago, and the hamstring injury is but one of many in a long line of physical issues that have held off his call to The Show.

The talent has always been there, however, and it's showing up in the numbers under the numbers right now. He's hitting the ball at an average of 93.3 mph, with a 51.0 hard-hit rate and a 15.7 barrel rate. All three are comfortably above the norms at the Triple-A level, not to mention in line with all the hard contact Davis made in spring training.

Brennen Davis should be the next man up for the platoons the Mariners are trying to figure out

At the big league level, Julio Rodríguez and Randy Arozarena are the only everyday righty batters the Mariners have. They're otherwise using platoons at right field and designated hitter against lefty pitchers, and here's how that's going: Seattle's .287 wOBA in RHB vs. LHP matchups is 26th in MLB.

Rob Refsnyder is starting to come around, which is a good thing given his status as the club's resident lefty masher. Yet as partners in crime go, Connor Joe and Will Wilson are merely filling in while Brendan Donovan (who bats lefty) and Robles are out.

Just in the abstract, Robles might not be the right guy to work in tandem with Luke Raley in right field or Dominic Canzone at DH. His excellent 2024 stint with Seattle looks increasingly like an outlier. And for his career, a .713 OPS against lefties compared to a .673 OPS against righties doesn't signify that much of a platoon advantage.

Davis' own performance against lefties in the minors has been inconsistent, but the trendline is pointed up. We're talking small sample sizes because of his injuries, but this is the second year out of the last three that his OPS against lefties has been over 1.000.

If he's going to get an audition, it should come sooner rather than later. It makes sense to see what he can do while Robles is still recovering from his strained right pec, which was going to require a few more weeks as of April 17. The hope would be that Davis could at least be better than Joe, who is 3-for-14 with five strikeouts. That's a low bar to clear, and a healthy Robles could step in if Davis failed to clear it.

The potential reward, though, is a long-awaited hit on a former top prospect. Even if all it did was get the platoons into shape, the impact on Seattle's playoff odds could still be significant.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow