Where Do We Go From Here?

Let's face it. The Seattle Mariners 2010 season looks about as good as Mangie Mentink's haircut.

Two months into the season and the M's simply can't get it together. They've wasted brilliant starting pitching performances with the lethal combo of zero offense and inept relief pitching. If it weren't for the other three AL West teams intent on playing mediocre baseball, the Mariners season would already be over.

The M's are eight games out of first with 3/4 of the season remaining. If they could only start firing on all cylinders, they potentially could put together a great June and get right back in the race.

Chone Figgins, Jose Lopez and Casey Kotchman all can't suck this bad. Once their bats get going, one could assume that would equate into more wins. Right?

But for all the play the Mariners offense has gotten for being so Heidi Montag, the bigger issue has been the Spencer Pratt-esque relief pitching. Mariners relief pitchers are responsible for 13 of the teams 30 losses. That is simply unacceptable.

Brandon League surrendered two game-winning grand slams in May. In both situations, he gave up on the mound. While League's mullet and giant neck tat seem interesting, the guy needs to stop making love to the pooch in key situations. Unless League has some sort of Hawaiian witch doctor thing going on and he knew that Kendry Morales would fracture his leg celebrating his walk-off grand slam, there's absolutely no excuse why a guy who locates a mid-90's fastball can't get hitters out regularly in clutch situations. As it stands now, League's biggest contribution as a Mariner could be giving up the bomb that lead to Morales busting his leg. That pretty much ended the Angels season.

And maybe that's how the M's will get back into this thing. Maybe one night Josh Hamilton returns to his hotel room and finds a giant bowl of blow on his bed? That will end the Rangers season. The A's aren't very good to begin with, so they will surely play their way out of contention. Before you know it, the M's will be atop the AL West.

In all seriousness, the Mariners are a few more losses from having the season end in June. But they're also a few wins from getting a stay of execution.

And if all else fails, there's always Brandon League.

The End?

During the 1994 season, the Minnesota Twins, managed by 12-year old Billy Haywood stood at a crossroads with their aging slugger and Twins legend Jerry Johnson.

Following a Johnson single that got Haywood particularly hopeful for a Johnson revival, bench coach Mac Macnally turned to Haywood and said, "Son, don't you think there's something wrong when you get this excited over a seeing-eye single?"

After the game, Haywood made the excruciatingly painful decision to inform Johnson that the Twins were releasing him. An irate Johnson forcefully told Haywood, "You're making a big mistake. I'm not through yet. I'm gonna catch on somewhere. And when I do, I'm gonna come back here and I'm gonna stick it RIGHT IN YOUR FACE."

Fast forward to 2010 and the Seattle Mariners seemingly have a similar situation on their hands. Ken Griffey Jr., the greatest athlete in Seattle sports history and the singular reason why there's even a baseball team in Seattle, is struggling mightily. At 40, Junior can't hit, can't field, and the revelation that Junior was sound asleep during Saturday's 4-3 extra innings loss to the Los Angeles Angeles of Orange County has lead to speculation that Junior's days as a professional baseball player are about to end abruptly.

This is certainly not what the Mariners and Griffey envisioned when they mutually decided to re-up for the 2010 season. While Griffey didn't hit for average in 2009, he still finished third on the team in home runs, and provided countless game changing and game winning hits for a squad that exceeded everyone's expectations. And when you factor in the final week of the 2009 when Junior blasted 3 home runs over the Mariners final six games, there was hope to think he could at least repeat his 09 performance.

But five weeks into the season, Griffey has zero home runs, five RBI's, and only two extra base hits. When he's not grounding out to second, he's either getting fooled on breaking balls in the dirt, or taking good pitches that he used to send into orbit.

The sleeping incident is a microcosm of how the Mariners season has gone so far in 2010. Save for Ichiro and Franklin Gutierrez, the entire offense might as well be sleeping in the clubhouse during games.

This team was supposed to contend. They were supposed to have enough hitting to complement their stellar pitching staff and lock down defense. But the offense has been so monumentally putrid that any chance of the M's team playing in October could realistically be erased in the next ten days.

The Griffey dilemma is confounding for more reasons than just the obvious fan backlash that would occur if the M's released him or encouraged him to retire. Are the Mariners prepared to have 'Griffey Backwards Cap Night' on July 8 and not have Griffey on the team?

Since almost the entire offense sucks just as much, if not more than Griffey does right now, there really isn't anyone who could replace Junior and be considered an upgrade. There isn't a masher in AAA just waiting for his chance to crack the 25-man roster. And if you think Mike Sweeney is an option, then you probably also think Sarah Palin should be president.

Griffey deserves to go out how he wants to go out and on his terms. Junior is not brain damaged like Evander Holyfield who seems intent on dying in the boxing ring. Griffey doesn't need to play for a pay check or to guarantee Hall of Fame enshrinement. He's still playing because he loves the game as much as anyone and he feels like he can still contribute.

What happens next is anyone's guess. If the Mariners and Griffey can start hitting and start winning some baseball games, this will all be forgotten. If not, Griffey could always go the Jerry Johnson route.

After Johnson failed to make good on his threat to stick it in the Twins' face, he was immediately hired as the team's hitting coach following a crushing defeat to the Mariners in a one-game playoff tie breaker.

And who hit the game-winning homer for the Mariners?

Ken Griffey Jr.

Heaven I Need A Hug

When the Mariners swindled the Cubs this past December into taking Fats Silva for Milton Bradley, everyone agreed that GM Jack Zduriencik pulled off yet another brilliant heist. Silva's real market value was akin to a $5 gift certificate from Arby's. To get an All-Star caliber player for a pitcher who spent his first two seasons in Seattle buying up large quantities of Double Stuff Oreos with the $48 million former special needs child GM Bill Bavasi gifted him seemed unthinkable. (And just you wait Cubs fans, despite his good start, Silva is getting nice and plump to start posting lines that look like this : 2/3 IP, 8 hits, 10 ER, 4BB, 0 K's).

Sure, the knock on Bradley is that he's a walking time bomb, ala Britney Spears circa 2007-2008, but that's still infinitely better than Fats Silva requiring daily retrofitting of the clubhouse bench.

Unlike Kanye West and Ron Artest, the two people Bradley recently compared himself to, Bradley's actions genuinely seem to be in earnest. Kanye and Artest are all show, little substance. Milton simply cares too damn much. And that's what makes Bradley's cry for help so endearing.

There's something about Milton that makes you want to give him a hug and tell him everything will be alright.

While it appears the M's are going to do whatever they can to get Bradley the treatment he needs, one can't help but notice that this reactionary move may very well have cost the Mariners the season. For a franchise that has been widely recognized for its solid personnel decisions, the M's should have been proactive in dealing with Bradley. It's not like he woke up yesterday morning and needed help. He's needed help for years.

Like a troubled foster child being passed from foster home from foster home, Bradley has been passed from team to team (8 in 11 seasons). His undeniable talent is what keeps general managers to naively think that a change of scenery will solve Bradley's problems. And when his demons overshadow that talent, Bradley is discarded like an old MiniDisc player you found in a box that's been taped shut in storage for the last seven years.

At a dinner in January featuring Zduriencik and Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu as the guest speakers, I asked them how they planned on dealing with Milton should any issues arise. Both agreed that having a veteran clubhouse and a great role model in Ken Griffey Jr. would be keys to keeping Bradley under control.

That plan obviously hasn't worked.

In a perfect world, Bradley's saga will bring the Mariners together. Bradley will get the help he needs, come back and start hitting the way he did in 2008 when he lead the American League in OPS. Fueled by his return, the Mariners will charge their way to the AL West title they've coveted since the end of last season.

But the reality is that the Mariners just lost the only player in the lineup who has shown some pop in his bat over the last two weeks. There's no quick fix to replace Bradley's production.

For a team that desperately needed Bradley to be 2008 Bradley begin with, the M's need him even more now.

And for the first time in his career, Bradley needs the team just as much.

Gut Check

Following a solid 7-2 opening home stand to pull them to 9-7 on the season, the Seattle Mariners have sunk into an offensive abyss that is seriously threatening to derail their season in May.

A three-game sweep to the lowly Chicago White Sox last weekend, and now a three-game sweep to the inconsistent Texas Rangers has exposed how painfully bad the M's offense has become.

The Mariners lost all three games to the White Sox by one run. The Rangers forced the M's into submission this weekend. Two heart breaking extra-inning loses, combined with the rare poor performance from Felix Hernandez now has the Mariners three games under .500 with the Tampa Bay Ray and Los Angeles Angeles of Orange County coming to town next week. Think things are bad now? They could be ten times worse come next Sunday.

The most frustrating thing is that not only are most of these games winnable, but the Mariners starting pitchers have been so ridiculously good that it seems unfair that the offense and the bullpen continually waste the brilliant starts.

Everyone expected Hernandez to pitch at a Cy Young caliber level. But nobody would have expected both Jason Vargas and Doug Fister to be two of the American League's best pitchers over the season's first month.

Aside from trading for Adrian Gonzalez, there's little the Mariners can do to improve the offense. There are no big bats in the minors ready to add a boost to the lineup. But the Mariners offense, save for the two headed catching monster of Rob Johnson and Adam Moore, is capable of putting up better numbers than it currently is. Ichiro is the only player who has been consistently hitting. You have to figure these bats will wake up. Ken Griffey Jr. is going to start hitting home runs. Chone Figgins is going to start getting hits in bunches. These guys have been putting up numbers their whole careers. It doesn't just all crap out at once, does it?

Cutting Eric Byrnes had to be done. After finding a way to lose the game twice in the same at-bat on Friday, Byrnes followed up that performance with another 0-4 on Sunday. For all the praise heaped upon Byrnes for his "hustle" and "determination", the fact of the matter is that Byrnes may have put in one of the worst April's in baseball history.

Baseball fans regularly make comments like, "I could hit that pitch" or "I'm a better player than him". Unless you played Division I baseball, or spent time in the minor leagues, such remarks are about as believable as anything that comes from Howard Schultz's mouth. But Byrnes is the first player I've seen where I can honestly say that I could be just as crappy as him. Byrnes hit .094 with no home runs in no RBI's. Byrnes also missed every single ball he dove for in left field (there were many). While I'm the first to admit that my batting average would be .000, I'm fairly confident if you give me some adderall and some Mountain Dew and threw me in left field, I could suck as much as Byrnes.

The other component to the Mariners troubling past 10 days has been the bullpen. Brandon League, Mark Lowe and David Aardsma have all choked in numerous high pressure moments. Five out of the Mariners last seven losses have come from either League, Lowe or Aardsma. This can't continue to happen. It's like running an Ironman race and puking a quarter mile before the finish line, slipping on the puke and breaking your leg.

If the Mariners can win four out of the next six games, they will have seemingly gotten back on track. If they can't, then it's time to panic.