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.