Given the truncated nature of this year’s season, doing a full recap/look-back of the first half seems a bit unnecessary. Instead, we’ve decided to simply describe a few random thoughts/moments from these first 30 games. Some of them are nice. Some of them are less nice. And some of them are a little weird. #goms

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Favorite Things

August 16. Daniel Vogelbach, mired in a year-long slump, strides to the plate, 0-for-2 on the day. It’s the top of the sixth, and the game is tied. It’s against the Astros. Dylan Moore stands at third base. A year ago, Vogelbach was Seattle’s lone All-Star representative. For a couple weeks, rumors had been swirling that his days as a Mariner are numbered. (Editor’s note: They were.) A base knock not only gives the M’s a lead, maybe it jump starts Vogey’s 2020 season. How many of us would press, swing from our heels, hoping for one positive outcome to turn the tides of not only this game, but our whole career?

Instead of following that clichéd path, Vogelbach left the bat on his shoulders, watching five straight pitches go by, earning a walk. How many of us would have that level of conviction in ourselves, to continue to be who we are, at our core, in the midst of one of our greatest challenges? Go forth Vogdor, and continue to burninate in your style. I’ll try to follow your lead and be more true to myself. (Dan)

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For all the weirdness of Major League Baseball in 2020, its best change has been the one that’s felt the most natural: the regional schedule. With all due respect to you traditionalists (read: freaks) out there, the implementation of the universal DH and the subsequent elimination of the differences between the National and American Leagues has been long overdue. 

I knew I would enjoy that change. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to become a full-on league abolitionist. To hell with the AL and NL! I adore these new regional leagues and the uniqueness each one collectively brings, whether that’s the Pacific flair of the West, the metropolitan feel of ball in the East, or the Central, which is also there. 

While there’s no realistic way to build a 162-game season around strictly regional competition, I think MLB has accidentally stumbled onto something really cool here that shouldn’t be totally discarded in post-pandemic times. Over the course of a regular season, a schedule built around regional play could lead to reduced travel for teams, which would mean better-rested players and a higher quality of play on the field. And new rivalries could be ignited without sacrificing any of baseball’s longest-standing blood feuds. Figure it out, MLB brain geniuses. Don’t kill the one cool thing you lucked into after Sideshow Bob’ing your way through the lead-up to the season. (Eitner)

Nice Surprises

It’s an incredibly easy point to make, but for the Seattle Mariners to create a competitive roster out of a well-touted farm with very little MLB-level talent currently on the club, they need to have a couple surprise successes. There’s no doubt that, at the beginning of 2019, Kyle Lewis was nearly dead in the water as far as MLB prospects go. 

Since being drafted in the first round, suffering an injury, and then missing nearly two seasons, Lewis was pretty much off the radar as far as future plans went. The organization stopped talking about him and we all followed suit, essentially out of mercy. All he’s done in the first 30 games of 2020 is run an fWAR/600 of 8.0. That’s right — with his current play (and a BABIP near .450), the Seattle Mariners have Mike Trout Lite manning center field. His line drive percentage is up, he’s using the middle of the field more, he’s pacing for over 30 HR in a full season, and he’s striking out 40% less and walking three times as often as he did in 2019. The Mariners might have their first ROY of the winner since Ichiro in 2001, and his name is Kyle Lewis. (David)

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The Paxton trade was bad. We all hated it at the time, for our own reasons, and we were right to do so. It was the perfect example of the modern baseball transaction: A popular and talented player, happy with his organization and his role, who failed to fit the schedule of his team’s contention cycle. It wasn’t a trade for the future, just a condemnation of the past: that the Mariners lost James Paxton simply because they weren’t good enough to retain him.

Justus Sheffield will never be as good as James Paxton. Since the trade, he’s lost more than his way; he’s lost three ticks off his pitches, averaging a pedestrian 91.5 mph in 2020 with his four-seamer. And yet, for the first time, it’s possible to imagine Sheffield as part of the Next Not-Quite-Enough Mariners team. This year his pitches squirm across the plate, and while especially the fastball will still slip out of the zone a little too often, they’re also diving underneath the barrel of the bat for grounders. For the first time since Paxton himself, a Mariners pitching prospect, and his pitches, are showing a sign of much-needed life. (Patrick)

Disappointments

At the end of July, the Mariners starting middle infielders were riding high. They both looked comfortable at the plate — combining for a wRC+ of 156 — and even though Shed was shaky on defense sometimes, Crawford flashed leather that almost seemed to glitter golden in the sun. Given their relative youth, it wasn’t toooooo hard to envision a fun, dynamic, productive SS/2B combo for years to come. 

Unfortunately, the dog days have hit our boys hard. Since the beginning of August, Shed has a wRC+ of 11 and an fWAR of -0.4 in 19 games. He snapped an 0-for-18 streak with a double the other day, but his body language at the plate has seemed pretty defeated lately. Crawford has somehow been worse, posting an fWAR of -0.5 in August. He hasn’t recorded an extra-base hit in more than 100 PA and his swagger is largely diminished. These struggles have only lasted a few weeks, but the lows have been pretty darn low.

All inexperienced players suffer from extended slumps on occasion, and Crawford and (especially) Shed are fairly unseasoned. But to blossom into a real contender during their next target contention window (which supposedly starts in 2021), the Mariners desperately need at least one of these guys — and probably both of them! — to establish themselves as good, dependable, everyday players. There’s still time left to right the ship, but these guys need to get it going sooner rather than later. (Andrew)

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There are over 13,000 cardboard cutouts filling the seats of T-Mobile Park at this very moment. They are silent protectors, a soundless legion. Oftentimes while watching a broadcast, one can nearly convince themselves that they’re watching a typical Thursday evening game with all the cutouts in attendance. 

I don’t know whether it’s a damning indictment of the past attendances of recent seasons or a genius marketing ploy, but there are tons of smug mugs basking in their frozen glory in SoDo. So, with all these pieces of cardboard littering a ballpark, how have we not seen one get its head knocked off by a screaming line drive? This is a profound disappointment. All we want is one headless cutout, one person to tag on Twitter and relentlessly meme over and over again. We want the hex lifted, and we are willing to sacrifice. We want this. We need this. Make it so. (David)