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closeCan it be less than two months ago that Mariners manager John McLaren and Padres manager Bud Black stood in the Arizona sunshine chatting away as their teams prepared for one of several spring training games at Peoria Stadium?
It was a simpler time for both men.
The regular season was still a week away. There was nothing but optimistic possibilities for the season and nothing but limitless potential for their teams.
Both the Mariners and Pares were expected to contend for division titles.
Fast forward to today and it’s far from what either McLaren or Black could have envisioned.
Going into their three-game interleague series which opens tonight, the Mariners (16-26) and the Padres (15-27) own the worst records in their respective leagues.
With a win on Wednesday, coupled with the Padres’ loss to the Cubs on Thursday, the Mariners hold a two-game cushion over “the team with the worst record in all of baseball.”
A question was posed to McLaren the other day.
“Could you have ever imagined that your team would reach this point in the season and be having this much difficulty?”
Though he tried, McLaren, who’s a man known to answer most any question posed to him, simply couldn’t find a good response.
“No, no, no, no,” he stammered. “I really don’t even know what else to say. Just, no. No. No.”
How could things have gone so wrong for these two teams?
There are no easy answers, of course, or McLaren and Black would have adjusted for some of them.
Coming into the season, both teams believed starting pitching would be their strength. Seattle had its top three pitchers in Erik Bedard, Felix Hernandez and Carlos Silva, while San Diego would rely on Jake Peavy, Chris Young and Greg Maddux. Formidable trios to be sure. Each of them has been solid if not spectacular, but starting pitching alone has been to overcome the lack of offense by these two teams.
If Mariners fans think Seattle’s offense is the most awful thing in baseball, they haven’t seen the ghastly numbers that the Padres are putting up.
San Diego has the worst batting average in baseball (.233), has scored the fewest runs (140), and also has the worst on-base percentage (.303) and the worst slugging percentage (.344). The Padres have also struck out a league-leading 322 times this season and have been shut out four times.
By comparison, Seattle’s sluggish offensive stats seem almost Ruthian. The Mariners are hitting .248 as a team with 171 runs scored; they have hit 13 more doubles and five more home runs and have struck out 211 times.
Maybe something in the Peoria drinking water caused such hitting.
“If we’re doing what we’re doing right now in a couple of weeks ... I will be concerned,” Black told reporters on April 19.
Perhaps Black is now officially concerned.
As for the Mariners, they return to Safeco Field coming off a 12-inning win over the Texas Rangers and an off-day on Thursday.
Most players took the day to spend time with families and decompress from a stretch of baseball that saw the Mariners lose 12 of their last 14 and eight straight series.
Even McLaren admitted that as good as the win felt on Wednesday, the Mariners still have to try and dig their way out of a major hole they dug themselves.
“It was a very positive game, but we still have a lot of work to do,” he said after Wednesday’s win.
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