A long Season

Update July 26th.-- Well after losing their 16th straight loss going back to before the All-Star game, and being 16 games under .500, the Mariners are seeing reality. The short period they were 3 games over .500 and only a half-game behind Texas for the division lead was wishful thinking. Just hope, now gone up in smoke.

The question is if the team from the owners to the players actually make the changes they need, like fire the President and GM for starters. Keep the manager, trade some players but not Ichiro, and then get out the check to build a team around a core of young players. You can't have another 2001 team which set the American League record of 116 wins again. They were good and lucky, and did I say lucky all had career years in the same year.

I will give them their due too. Their pitching is in the top ten in baseball and their fielding is also in the top ten, so there is the nucleus of a very good team. The problem is their hitting is the worst in baseball, a good 10 percentage points behind the second worst team. All the bats that were going to showcase their lineup has happened. The young players haven't hit and the experienced ones have equally not hit. And now all but a few players are playing for their contract to be traded, released or maybe return next season.

The April 4th post.-- I'm a Seattle Mariner fan. Have been since about 1990. So we Mariner fans are a lot like the fans for other teams who's hope of finishing at .500 let alone contending for the division lead and makeing the playoffs is the proverbial less than zero. And for the last 5 years since their record-tying 116 winning game season in 2001, they've be medicore at best and down right horrible most of the time.

And so this season appears to be no different than their 101 losing games season last year and in 2008. The 2009 year is an anomaly since it was the only winning season in the last 7 seasons and only their 9th in their 34 years in baseball. So it's easy to see after winning their first two games they've lost seven games in a row now, one to Oakland, three to Texas and now three to Cleveland.

The have promised all sort of improvements each year. They've gone through numerous managers in the last 5-plus years, brought in new, supposedly great player who only end up going bust before moving on and playing better (eg. Andrian Beltre), and revised both the infield and outfield so many times no one remembers who's on first any more, except Ichiro is always in right field.

There are problems hundreds of reasons the team doesn't win, large and small, direct and indirect, off the in the locker room and one the field. But it's always the many small thing do them in, errors, bad at-bats, and so on down the roster for every player in the lineup and on the bench.

They all contribute to the failure to win and win consistently, enough to contend if not win the division. And it includes the managers, from Eric Wedge to the assistant ones. No one is off the hook and everyone is on the hook. Fault is pervasive and persistent. Their own common practice.

And even after we, the taxpayers, bought them a new stadium, thanks to Ken Griffey Jr. and get filled now thanks to Ichiro. But since the 2003 season, and only one winning season in that time, it's always a wonder wher the owners (Intendo) and general manager heads are at knowing what to do to have and keep a winning time.

But it's generally they're simply too cheap and don't know how to build a team, because when they get great players, they go bust when they're here in Seattle and almost all of their minor league prospects don't make the majors and those who do end up being traded or leave. It's always a head-scratcher when they say they're doing good but the record doesn't reflect it.

So, I can hope for a good season, as all Mariners fans do, but in the end it's going to be a long season. A really long season. Again.