Seattle, WA
Seattle Mariners' new identity is resilient and relentless
At 28-20, winners of 11 of their last 13 series, and with a 3 1/2 game lead in the AL West, the Mariners have been good. Better than expected. Better than most of the teams in the American League. Better offensively than they’ve been in years. Better defensively than they appeared to be when the season began. Better in the bullpen than they were last year. Better depth than we knew.
Seattle Mariners off to MLB-best road start with sharp pitching, timely hitting
The stats tell that story. Your eyes tell that story. At least through the first 48 games, those statements are all but indisputable. And with just six games to go before we get to the one-third mark of the season, it’s probably fair to say that it is no longer “early” in the season.
I don’t know if the Mariners can keep up this pace. I’m not sure if anyone does. But I strongly believe they are succeeding because of two qualities that often describe teams that see high levels of success.
They are resilient. And they are relentless.
I might not be able to prove either of those statements, but the first one should be easy to see. At one point this week, the team was without eight members of its projected opening day 26-man roster. That includes three members of their starting rotation, always assumed to be the strength of the squad. Sixty percent of the rotation! Thirty-one percent of the roster!
None of it has slowed them down. The “next man up” mentality is alive and well in this clubhouse.
But their resilience has been on display in other ways. They are now 7-1 in deciding “rubber games” of series. They have won five series after dropping the first game. Only once have they lost as many as four games in a row, and they responded almost immediately by winning four straight, on the road, including three against the excellent Padres.
They aren’t phased by late-game deficits. In fact, they have 14 comeback wins this year (tied for second most in baseball behind only the Dodgers), including a few memorable ones against the A’s, Astros and White Sox.
And it’s funny, but a whole bunch of those comebacks have come from their other great quality: their relentlessness.
The Oxford Dictionary defines relentless as “oppressively constant; incessant,” and that’s how the Mariners must appear to opponents. We expected that would be true of their rotation. It would certainly seem oppressive to have to face any combination of their top five starters in a single series and deal with the incessant pounding of the strike zone with a steady diet of fastballs and nasty breaking balls.
There was a sense that the return of Matt Brash, the return to form of Gabe Speier and the continued emergence of Andrés Muñoz would give the late innings a similar feel.
But I’d be lying if I told you I expected a relentless offense. Yet, it has been exactly that, thanks both to the approach and the depth of the lineup.
On most nights, the Mariners can offer a lineup with seven or eight players with an OPS+ over 100 (which is league average). Yes, that’s insane. There’s Jorge Polanco (177), Cal Raleigh (168), Dylan Moore (149), Leo Rivas (139), J.P. Crawford (132), Randy Arozarena (129), Julio Rodríguez (111), and Rowdy Tellez (107). Ben Williamson, Miles Mastrobuoni and Leody Taveras are not at that level, but all three have battled with competitive at-bats and contributed directly to huge wins.
And that is the other way in which they have been relentless: they simply haven’t given away many at-bats. There is no precise way to define an at-bat that was given away, but you know it when you see it. It can be characterized by chasing lots of pitches outside the zone, popping up, or rolling over on ground balls early in the count. What had become an unfortunate hallmark of this offense for the last two seasons has (thankfully) disappeared.
They take down ace pitchers, having won games against Tarik Skubal, Hunter Brown, Garrett Crochet, Michael King, Nathan Eovaldi and Max Fried. They’ve hung around in games long enough to put pressure on relievers. And even on nights when they haven’t scored much, they have offered a sense of hope that runs are coming because they haven’t given up and continue to work hard.
The Mariners may not maintain their currently pace of 95 wins. But they are sure developing the characteristics of a team that can do that and more. If these personality traits continue to define them, there should be plenty of meaningful and fun baseball ahead.
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