Are the Mariners Contenders?

By Matt Loehle, Senior Baseball Analyst

The Mariners success this season has been nothing short of bizarre. With Robinson Cano suspended for half the season, it was reasonable to expect that Seattle’s offense would take a hit and wins would be more difficult to come by. Somehow – and this is the cool thing about baseball – the Mariners have established a new identity: one that thrives in close games. With a 4-3 win last night over the Rays, the Mariners have won 16 of their last 20 games. If that isn’t impressive enough, 20 of their games have been one-run victories, with plenty more being decided by 2 or 3 runs. Wins are wins, and the Mariners have tallied up enough lately to vault them into first place over the Astros, the team that everybody (including myself) assumed would run away with the division. The American League figures to be a heated race down the stretch, and if the Mariners have positioned themselves pretty well thus far to be right in the middle of things. They are one of 4 teams in baseball with at least 40 wins, in the company of the Astros, Red Sox, and Yankees. I’m not really going out on a limb when I say that the Mariners are the most unstable team of the bunch. That being said, I also am not taking away from their chances at sneaking into the playoffs in a few months. The parity in baseball right now is atrocious, so the Mariners will be able to rack up plenty of victories against the awful teams on their path to a competitive win total.

An excessive amount of one-run victories means a baseball team is either lucky, has excellent starting pitching, or has a rock-solid bullpen. In Seattle’s case, their string of success can be attributed to their starters going deep into games before handing it over to a handful of lockdown relievers. The bullpen is rarely taxed to the point where middle relievers are picking up the slack. This sort of trend is incredibly efficient, effective, and will pay dividends down the road. The starting rotation is led by James Paxton, who is having a dark horse Cy-Young caliber year. [Just a quick aside: the race right now is dominated by Verlander, Severino, Kluber, and Cole]. Big Maple has a 2.95 ERA and a fantastic 101:25 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The guy also has a no-hitter under his belt this season, too. Behind him is the 26-year-old Marco Gonzalez, whose turnaround season this year has been a huge part of the Mariners success. I can’t overstate how important a playoff-rotation #2 guy is, and so far, Gonzalez has passed all the tests. 7-3, 3.28 ERA, goes 6-7 innings every time he trots out there… Seattle has to be thrilled with what Gonzalez has unexpectedly given them this season. Mike Leake is also back there, chewing up an absurd amount of quality innings. Fill-in starter Wade LeBlanc has quietly posted a 2.94 ERA, too. There you have it – a whole rotation of good, quality, and sometimes elite inning-eaters. That’ll do the whole “jump into first place ahead of the Astros” trick.

The bullpen has to get its fair share of credit, too. Edwin Diaz leads the league with 22 saves as one of the premier closers in the game. He sports a 0.88 WHIP, and an impressive (but also inflated/not fully representative of his dominance) 2.73 ERA. Diaz has been possibly the most important piece in Seattle’s ability to churn out these one-run victories. The Mariners also recently acquired former Rays closer Alex Colome to be their 8^th inning guy. Whenever you have the ability to plug in two closer-capable guys at the end of games, you’re generally in pretty good shape. Some of the other key guys in their bullpen include James Pazos and Chasen Bradford – who you probably haven’t really heard much about unless you’re a Mariners fan. Well, to keep it simple, these guys have 1.25 and 1.82 ERAs, respectively. And to think of it, most of the time the Mariners barely even need all their weapons to close games when guys like Mike Leake go 8 innings all the time. The whole pitching staff is a really solid system, and its working like clockwork for Seattle right now.

This brings me to the main point of this piece: are the Mariners good enough (considering Cano’s eventual return) to contend in the AL playoffs? To that, I have to say no. There is an element of being paper tigers with this Mariners team right now. This 16-of-20 win stretch they’re on right now? Those opponents have been the likes of the Rays, Rangers, Twins, Tigers, and Athletics. Hardly playoff level competition. Even assuming that these surprise starters continue this stretch of great starts, Seattle’s offense can’t score enough runs to keep up with teams like the Red Sox. Jean Segura, hitting .340, is the only consistent threatening presence in that lineup. The Mariners should make some sort of move by the trade deadline to acquire another bat to bolster the offense. This gives the rotation a little more wiggle room. After that, keep winning until Robinson Cano returns, pray for health of the starters (looking at you, James Paxton), and then maybe you’ll have a chance to pull off an upset in the playoffs.