Monday Morning Mariber is a collection of thoughts on the Mariners week that was, with a focus on the weekend games. Much like this past week of games, this edition of the column largely consists of some good ol’ fashioned vamping.

Stuck in Neutral

On Friday night the Mariners deserved to win. Down 4-3 in the 9th with two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd Adam Frazier saw a letters-high fastball from a deeply-out-of-sorts Tanner Houck and put his turned has barrel directly on the ball. It was a rope, a seed, a, as we called it in highschool, pissrocket. Ball left bat at 99 MPH. As the ball screeched towards green grass and victory Great Almighty Math said the Mariners had a 91% chance of winning the game, but the 9% was located in Trevor Story’s glove, which is exactly where the ball ended up, and the Mariners lost.

On Saturday night the Mariners deserved to lose. Top Prospect George Kirby and Top Dude Paul Sewald gave up dingers, the Mariners were down 6-5 with two outs in the ninth, runners on 1st and 2nd with Abraham Toro and Dylan Moore due up. Toro is many things and also very few things all at once but one thing he is is a man who knows his role, and his role is to hit the ball very softly. 

On a 3-2 pitch from Hansel Robles he did exactly that, lifting a lazy pop fly to center with what we will, in the interest of generosity to our protagonist, round up to a 69 MPH EV. The ball sliced a ragged, lazy gash through a clear Northwest sky, peaked, and began a gentle descent towards earth, with another Mariner loss cradled in its bosom. 

For whatever reason, be it a terrible jump or catastrophic defensive alignment, all-world defensive outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. was nowhere near the ball, and it gleefully touched grass. The tying run scored from second, and Dylan Moore followed up with a screaming line drive (because unlike some other people Dylan Moore is capable of hitting baseballs hard, on the off chance that he hits them at all) that also alluded Bradley Jr., and the Mariners won in that most delightful of ways, pulling victory completely and utterly from out of their own backside.

It was two games, back-to-back, that served as a fair encapsulation for the 2022 Mariners Experience thus far. The team has had some bad luck, and some good luck. They have had a few good stretches, and some bad ones. They are not particularly great nor bad, they hit and pitch and field ok. When they win they feel unbeatable, and when they lose it’s hard to believe they’ve won a game all season. They are hideously flawed, tantalizingly talented and, when mashed together as a collective unit, just about the most .500 true-talent roster I can remember watching. That they went 3-3 this past week merely drives that point home. 

With eight (yes eight) games on the schedule this week, including five against the Angles, perhaps the only team and organization that captures the essence of mediocrity better than the Mariners, Seattle has a chance to finally move the needle of this season in a definitive direction. But if I had to bet? I’d say they go 4-4. Baseball Prospectus currently has them projected to finish 80-82. They are 465-465 in the Jerry Dipoto Era. 

The Future (I sure hope) is Bright.

Three Up

How Many Dumps Could a Big Dumper Dump, if a Big Dumper Could Dump Dumps?

When I look at Cal Raleigh I always hear Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Mickey O’Neil in SNATCH (2000):

Mickey: F*** me, look at the size of him.

Mickey: How big are you? Hey kids, how big is he?

Kid: Big man, that’s for sure.

The man they call Big Dumper has had a very slow start to his major league career .180/.223/.309 in 2021 Raleigh’s line bottomed on exactly a month ago on May 13th, at a positively Bartolo Colon-career hitting-line of .065/.194/.165. Since then, whatever had Cal’s bat all stopped up has been completely removed, and it has resulted in a line of .219/.282/.531 over the past month. My untrained eye agree with what Mike Blowers has spoken of on the broadcast, in that Raleigh’s swing looks shorter and quicker to the ball. Because he is, again, a big man (that’s for sure), it doesn’t take much for him to generate power.

With Tom Murphy out until (shrug emoji) and Luis Torrens’ bat completely cratering Raleigh is going to be pressed into the starting catcher role, probably earlier than the organization anticipated. His ability to survive is going to depend on his offense, and his offense is going to depend on his ability to generate huge dumps. So, by all means, let’s keep those regular.

Don’t You Dare Get Bored With This

HO HUM YES IT IS JUST A 21 YEAR OLD HANGING OUT LEARNING TO PLAY CENTERFIELD ON THE FLY AND SPORTING A 119 wRC+ WHILE LEADING THE LEAGUE IN STOLEN BASES ALL WHILE TAPPING INTO APPROXIMATELY 7.8% OF HIS OVERALL CEILING!

I keep writing about Julio and feel like I should be running out of ways to describe it, but the dude’s play just keeps making it all too simple. I was at the game on Saturday when he took Michael Wacha way out to left-center and did my own re-creation of the famous Vlad Jr. “Got that sumBITCH on video too!” as I allowed for some moderately-high levels of Rainier-fueled hootin’ and/or hollerin’ for the Red Sox fans in my section. 

He’s still so young, and so raw, and when he runs into pitchers with plus stuff and precise command has trouble making contact. In particular running fastballs down and in appear to be an issue. But, holy crap! Who cares! The kid is going to be something like a 3.5-4 win player at 21 years of age. He’s already a legitimate star if he never improves a lick. If he has a normal development bump over the next 3-4 seasons he is, as my buddy Chris Crawford predicts, going to put up 40-40 seasons and win MVPs. REJOICE IN JULIO!

Ah Yes Pound-The-Zone, Keep the Ball Down Robbie Ray, Of Course

The Mariners lost on Sunday, which sucked but was primarily the cause of their offense producing exactly one (1) American hit. This is bad and they should feel bad, but most likely do not because they are young and rich and a very real part of their job is being able to, by birth or training, be just dumb enough to forget what happened in any given game the very second it’s over.

SPEAKING OF DUMB, Robbie Ray took the mound that same day in desperate need of a quality start. Rather than his usual steady diet of high four-seamers and low sliders, Ray spent the start tossing out two-seamers and knuckle curves, leading to his first seven inning start since Opening Day, and his first start without allowing a home run since April.

The idea of a pound-the-zone, keep-the-ball-down, generate weak contact Robbie Ray is complete anathema to the man’s whole deal, and given that winning a Cy Young Award is included in that “whole deal” I would be shocked if this becomes a long term trend. Pitchers of Ray’s success and career length don’t simply change who they are midseason after a rough month+. 

This is all to say Ray was fantastic yesterday, and in ways he is almost never fantastic. I have absolutely no idea what to expect from his next start, or if a change in repertoire/approach can survive one round through scouting reports and league adjustments. But what he had been doing wasn’t working, so good on him for trying something new. I sure hope it sticks.

Three Down

Kylin Gutierwis

Look man this just all sucks ok? In some ways it would be better if Kyle Lewis hadn’t shown that, even on one leg, he’s a talented enough hitter to immediately make an impact for this team. It would be easier to tolerate if her weren’t by every measure an incredibly good dude who is impossibly easy to root for.

It’s just wholly unjust, and unfair, and brutal. All you can hope for is the guys gets one season to play pain-free and show the world what he can do. It’s not going to be this year, which just sucks so much.

Wink if You’re Ok

So, the season is not young anymore. The Mariners have played 60 games. Jesse Winker, their biggest and most-prized position player addition this past offseason, has an 88 wRC+. Given that he is essentially a designated hitter playing left field this is very much not a good thing.

I have zero understanding of what’s causing this problem. The man has certainly not benefited from the change in home ballparks, but he has a career slugging percentage of .475! It’s .303 now! Over 255 PA! What in the name of Kevin Mitchell is going on around here!?!? Also please don’t consider any of this in the broader context, for your own personal health.

You Can’t Spell Drew Steckenrider Without D(F)A Ok That Doesn’t Really Work But Neither Does He

There is no lesson to be learned from Drew Steckenrider going from fungible fringe-roster reliever to the lynchpin of one of the best relief corps in the league to being DFA’d, all within about an 18 month span. This is how relievers work, traditionally speaking. Paul Sewald is living a less extreme version of this story right now. For all but the very best, relief pitchers exist in the moment more than practically any other position group. 

Steck never had the stuff or the pedigree to really think he had found some new magic. He simply had a great year for a team that desperately needed it and, when he couldn’t duplicate it this year (or get into Toronto for “reasons”) he became easily expendable. When your organizational roster-structuring requires at least 2-3 heaping doses of pixie dust to be successful in any given year, you’re going to cycle through relief pitchers fairly quickly.

The Weekly “Mariners Tweet that Made Me Laugh Most Embarrassingly in Front of My Family” Award

*****

Here we go, with probably the biggest week of the season thus far. The Mariners are finally (finally!) going to play the Angels, and will do so a lot over the next month or so. Winning four of five would certainly get them up the AL West standings, but the opposite puts then back far closer to the A’s than any one striving for a healthy, balanced lifestyle should probably consider.

As always, you are the light in the dark. May your week be filled with joy and splendor. Goms.

You can follow Nathan on Twitter at @nathan_h_b. Additionally he appears on the Ian Furness show on Mollywhop Mondays on KJR 93.3 FM every Monday at 1:10 PM with Chris Crawford and Kevin Shockey. Please be nice, he is doing his best.