Mariners Week in Review: May 1-7

2-5 for the week. Bleah. A win against the Twins on Monday ran their winning streak to 3 in a row, tying the season's best. But then they get beat by Santana, dropped two to the White Sox and then 2 of three at home to the Indians. 13-20, last place, on pace for a 64-98 season. Dark, dark, dark.

23 paltry runs drops them back into 11th place in the AL at 137. 12th in OBP, 12th in SLG, 13th(!) in HR, but still #1 in steals and up to 2nd in percentage at 78%. It feels like they are running smarter and the SB percentage bears that out.

Ibanez leads the team with a 902 OPS for the week. Matt Lawton made some hay as the left side of a CF platoon hitting 385 with a few walks. All singles though as he slugs 385 for the week Third for the week? Adrian Beltre at 762. That's actually not all that great, but we takes the positive signs for the A-Train where we gets them. AB managed to slug 439 without any homers. The list of no-so-much hitters is long and distinguished, including YuBet's 136 average, Ichiro's 258 OBP and Sexson's pathetic 125/160/292. Richie's hitting 195 for the season, so if you want to blame someone, there he is.

Good pitching again this week, 29 runs taking us to 155 for the year, still 8th. The M's are within 7 runs of 4th place though, so the pitching is definitely solid. The Mariners still lead the league in K's (thank you Felix) but are 11th in walks (also thank you Felix).

Joel Piniero got the wins this week(!), twirling a couple of gems. He didn't walk anybody in nearly two full games of work. Great control, ground balls, keep it in the ballpark. Works for me. Washburn also had two solid starts, Jamie was Jamie and the King was bad again.

The pen was shaky again this week. Eddie blew another save and lost the closer job. Soriano, Woods and Sherrill all struggled a little bit especially on the control side (6 BB in 6 and 2/3 total innings). JJ continues to dazzle, picking up a save while striking out 2 guys in 4 batters.

I don't know what to make of things here. Surely the offense should pick up right? Sexson and Ichiro have to hit better. Lopez is the only guy likely to hit worse over the rest of the season, even Beltre and Reed should play better than they are. But won't the pitching just regress back to the bad level we thought it would be?? Safeco is keeping Meche respectable, Joel seems like a time bomb waiting to explode. Will the league figure out JJ's splitter? Who closes then? Washburn and Moyer should be able to pitch at their current levels or maybe a little worse and the King has substantial room for improvement so who knows? If the offense doesn't turn soon though, Hargrove and Bavasi aren't going to be around to see if the pitching holds up.