Seattle Mariners At The Quarter Pole Of The 2015 Season

Over the Memorial Day weekend, the Seattle Mariners accomplished something they hadn’t done in the nearly two weeks prior – win consecutive baseball games. May 12^th against the San Diego Padres, the Mariners took a 11-4 victory to culminate a four game winning streak, their longest of the season, and then went on a back to back win drought that lasted until Saturday, May 23^rd when they defeated the Toronto Blue Jays. Yesterday’s complete game shut out by Felix Hernandez and Nelson Cruz’s ninth inning heroics gave the Mariners a three game win streak and evened their record at 23-23.

It had been pretty difficult to build any momentum, rarely winning consecutive games. Indeed, over the first forty six games of the season, the Mariners have had only seven “winning streaks,” and haven’t been over .500 since opening day. Until these last two series against the Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays, the Mariners had only won series against the Texas Rangers and the Oakland A’s.

And as depressing as these results have been so far, it’s amazing to note that the Mariners are actually getting kind of lucky in close games, sporting a 4-3 record in extra innings and a 12-9 record in one run games. The Mariners have also managed to win nine games this season when the offense has scored fewer than four runs, four usually considered the “magic” number to realistically be in the hunt for a W.

But with all that said, the M’s return to Safeco today for the start of an eleven game home stand, facing the Cleveland Indians, the New York Yankees, and the Tampa Bay Rays, a home stand that will see May turn into June when the baseball season really begins to get interesting.

It was June 1^st last season that the 27-28 Mariners defeated the Detroit Tigers 4-0 to reach .500. They would not drop back below .500 for the remainder of the season. And it wasn’t until summer rolled into the Pacific Northwest that the enthusiasm for the Mariners started to build, culminating by just barely missing the wild card on the last day of the season.

The Houston Astros will not continue to play .638 baseball, as that is a 103 win pace, and the Mariners appear poised to do exactly what they did last year – turn the summer in the Emerald City into a whole lot of fun.