Seattle Mariners @ Miami Marlins

[Sweezo]

Is anyone back for more? How many spirits did that Texas series break?

M's are currently down 3-4 in Miami in another game where the bullpen is being used heavily. The Marlins aren't good, and we're once again pissing away opportunities with runners on.

[Sweezo]

Now we get to lose a game because of the transfer rule. Fantastic. Bases loaded for Stanton.

[Sweezo]

Why not just give up a walk-off grand slam?

[Bulltalk]

Okay. I wouldn't call these last two games of this series "must wins", but we've got to right this slide, and now.

[Sweezo]

Okay. I wouldn't call these last two games of this series "must wins", but we've got to right this slide, and now.

These games may not mean a ton in terms of how the team finishes over all, but they've got to give the fans something to latch onto if they want people to pay to come see them.

[Bulltalk]

The starting rotation (or lack thereof) is killing me. It was hard enough on McClendon to go into this season with 3/5's of the starting staff most likely made up of near rookies. Then the damn injuries to Iwakuma, Paxton, and Walker. When you think about it, as sporadic and uncertain as our hitting lineup may be, it is possible in retrospect to envision the team weathering the travails of this lineup early on this season if our starting rotation wasn't so injury riddled. Imagine such an injury free starting rotation now:

--Felix
--Iwakuma
--Paxton
--Walker
--Young/Elias

If Felix and Iwakuma combined to be at least as good as last year, if one of our near-rookies surprised, and the remaining combination of starters proved to be merely adequate, that would be a better than .500 starting rotation before you began to consider our lineup and bullpen.

This is what's maddening to me. There's simply too much in-flux with this team now. It's a damn shame that this in-flux quotient couldn't have been more minimized if we had simply been luckier (or less unlucky) on the injury front with our starting rotation.

I kind of feel sorry for McClendon in this way. We've got to find a way to stay close to .500 ball until out starting rotation can come into better focus. That's a tall order now. We're teetering here. Iwakuma's return can't come soon enough. Same with Paxton. Walker's situation, on the other hand, is starting to give me an eerie feeling now.

On the plus side of things, Ackley and Zunino are beginning to look like real keepers/everyday players, especially Zunino. I'm still holding out hope for Hart, as he's a proven hitter who will need time to come around after his injuries. Also, we need Seager to start kicking in here. And quick. Same for Miller. And we do need to pursue a trade for another established bat, preferably a RFer; but all these pitching injuries certainly aren't helping out our potential on that trade front.

The problem with this team and my feelings for them is that dreadful thought that we'll fall off the pace before the summer comes. I said previously that my great fear was that we'd be hovering just beneath the .500 level in April and May one losing streak/bad stretch away from drifting off into competitive insignificance again. That fear of mine is beginning to mount.

[Sweezo]

The problem with this team and my feelings for them is that dreadful thought that we'll fall off the pace before the summer comes. I said previously that my great fear was that we'd be hovering just beneath the .500 level in April and May one losing streak/bad stretch away from drifting off into competitive insignificance again. That fear of mine is beginning to mount.

They just have a knack for doing this in the most demoralizing of ways. Right now, they're 5 innings deep into a game where they've not had one baserunner. They're exhausting the patience of a fan base that's had enough of late inning collapses and shouldn't be so anemic that they get completely shutdown by the likes of Phil Humber and Henderson Alvarez.

[Bulltalk]

The problem with this team and my feelings for them is that dreadful thought that we'll fall off the pace before the summer comes. I said previously that my great fear was that we'd be hovering just beneath the .500 level in April and May one losing streak/bad stretch away from drifting off into competitive insignificance again. That fear of mine is beginning to mount.

They just have a knack for doing this in the most demoralizing of ways. Right now, they're 5 innings deep into a game where they've not had one baserunner. They're exhausting the patience of a fan base that's had enough of late inning collapses and shouldn't be so anemic that they get completely shutdown by the likes of Phil Humber and Henderson Alvarez.

God help us Mariner fans.

Down 6-0 in the 8th. God damn it!

[Sweezo]

A two hitter. Lose 7-0. Now, we get to see a Brandon Maurer served up like an Easter ham because there's no one else available to pitch. Maurer's pitched 8.1 innings over 4 games because they're were starting him off as a reliever. There's no chance he can keep the M's in the game tomorrow. W'ere going to get swept by a Marlins' team that isn't very good.

[Sweezo]

Damned bullpen blows a lead late and we lose 3-2. We're 7-11 [which is nearly identical to our record at this time last year], have lost 8 of the last 9 games, and if Oakland wins tonight they'll be 6 games up in the division. I don't care if the starting pitching has been bit by the injury bug...the offense needs to be able to pick this team up now and then, but they just can't seem to do it. We were 24th in the league in runs per game heading into this one [3.82 RPG] and that's not going to get any better after eking out only 2 runs today.

We didn't even face Jose Fernandez and the Marlins' pitching staff--including their BULLPEN--just shut us down.

Reinforcements? Oh, Franklin's on the team now...that triple he hit was pretty neat. He's done absolutely nothing else and for some reason was late on a couple 90 MPH fastballs today.

[Bulltalk]

Wow! The 6-10 Marlins use us as sitting ducks to win 3 in a row and get back to almost .500 ball at 9-10. Meanwhile, our 7-8 Mariners haplessly wave at them headed in the opposite direction at 7-11. This was one butt-ugly road trip. We've now lost 6 in a row, 8 of the last 9, and 11 out of the last 15 since our optimistic 3-0 start to the season.

We've officially entered early-season-emergency-territory here. It's been said of April/May that you can't make a season by a good early start, but you can surely lose a season by a bad start. Boy, we almost have to win at least 4 out of the next 6 home games against Houston and Texas, almost have to get back to at least 11-13 before venturing out on the road again.

Again, I feel kind of sorry for McClendon. Sure, he's made a few moves that I've questioned; but damn, it's hard to manage a team when your hitting lineup, starting pitching and bullpen are all taking their turns coming up short. He's running out of options, running out of fingers to put in the dike.

What's really a drag is the buzz-kill that's surely taking place amongst their fan base, a fan base that so wanted to believe that this year was going to be different (me included). Felix and Robinson Cano can only excite this bruised and battered fan base so much. They've got to win. They've got to remain in the hunt for at least that 5th and last playoff spot into the summer. If not, you can't blame the fans for not caring.

Well, if it all caves in early, at least we have the Seahawks to look forward to (and me the Huskies).

[TTown]

mcclendon seems like a guy who goes with his gut most of the time, and so far i've been wildly unimpressed with that gut. i don't understand why farhquar isn't our automatic 8th-inning guy. i don't understand why furbush and wilhemsen keep getting opportunities to give up runs, and our best reliever is tooling around elsewhere. i come from the school of thought that your bullpen has roles, and when you get outside of those roles, or none are established, guys tend to give up runs.

that call on seager friday was the cap on a really disenfranchising first three weeks of major league baseball for me. that is a crazy awful rule, and i cannot believe the powers that be allowed it to be implemented. words fail me. it's happening to someone every single night across the country.

before cano got two hits today i was afraid seattle had mariner'd him rough 6 or 7 days for him there.

iwakuma looks like he'll get the nod tuesday, which is nice. but elsewhere in this thread you guys already hit the nail on the head. the offense has to do SOMETHING. elias has lost a few games this year where he easily pitched well enough to win. it happened to felix in his last start. chris young's first start, maurer today... it's a patchwork unit, but our starters -- outside of a few notable instances -- have performed. performed well enough to have a decent record, anyway, if this team could hold a lead or string together a few consecutive hits. i think a lot of us (i know i did at least) thought that if we could just survive april we'd be okay pitching-wise, because farhquar/rodney looked like a nice 8/9-inning duo and cano cano cano offensively, but holy crap. we've survived april from a starting pitching POV despite some crazy injuries, and it's our other spots that look like hell -- and there's no incoming relief for them.

(why haven't we taught felix to hit yet??)

[Bulltalk]

^^^I hear you on Wilhemsen, and to a slightly lesser extent Furbush, mostly probably because he's a lefty. Wilhemsen makes me nervous every time he enters a close game now. I got a little bit of the that Bobby Ayala feeling about him. I agree with you about Lord Farquhar, that he should be bumped up into a more important relief role until he disappoints us there. I really hope Pryor comes back reasonably soon, and that he's still got that good stuff. I think our bullpen has potential to be decent with Rodney, Farqurah, Pryor, Medina, etc... We'll see.

It's a drag now, no doubt. We better pull out of this little tailspin against Houston. I mean, if not Houston now at home, then who and when?