Can the M’s make the playoffs with the offense as-is? Team owner: ‘I believe we can’
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2023 All-Star Game in Seattle
Seattle’s T-Mobile Park is the focus of the baseball world this week as MLB’s top players gather for the 2023 All-Star Game. The TNT sports staff brings you all the action.
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Can the Mariners return to the playoffs this fall with the offense they currently have?
Can what’s been a woeful, deficient lineup most of their uneven season so far make the postseason without reinforcements arriving for Seattle by Major League Baseball’s trading deadline Aug. 1?
“I believe we can,” Mariners majority owner John Stanton said Wednesday.
That’s likely not what M’s fans want to hear.
Seattle entered Wednesday 26th in the 30-team majors in hits, 25th in batting average and 23rd in on-base-plus-slugging percentage, with the third-most times struck out. Usually dealing team president Jerry Dipoto adding a bat — or three — before the trade deadline is widely viewed across the Pacific Northwest and beyond as not a luxury but a necessity for the Mariners.
Except, apparently, by the team’s owner.
The Mariners’ chairman and managing partner was speaking Wednesday outside an art gallery in the Pioneer Square area of downtown Seattle, at a media event with Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, MLB executives and other civic leaders. The event was to trumpet the many festivities in the city beginning this weekend surrounding the 93rd MLB All-Star Game on Tuesday evening at the Mariners’ T-Mobile Park.
After a formal media session, Stanton briefly and cordially answered questions from The News Tribune about his current Mariners.
They entered their series finale at San Francisco Wednesday night 42-42 and winners of four consecutive games. They’ve yet to be more than three games over .500 this season. Seattle entered Wednesday eight games behind arch-rival and defending World Series-champion Houston for the American League West lead, and five games out of a wild-card playoff spot.
The Mariners play four games against the Astros in Houston Thursday through Sunday before the All-Star break.
“I’m incredibly excited,” Stanton said. “Obviously, we are all bathing in the good vibes associated with winning four in a row.
“It’s a young team. It’s a team that has young leaders and young energy, and the fact that they lost more games in the first part of this season than any of us would have liked doesn’t really matter. It’s how you finish, not how you start.
“And I feel really good about how this team’s playing.”
The Mariners’ owner remains confident his team’s young pitching staff will lead Seattle back from its early season issues and to the playoffs for the second consecutive season. Seattle entered Wednesday ninth in the majors in runs allowed (360), third in walks plus hits allowed per inning pitched (1.194), first in strikeouts-to-walks (3.44 to 1) and first in fewest walks (220).
Ace Luis Castillo and 25-year-old starter George Kirby are joining center fielder Julio Rodriguez as the Mariners’ All-Stars in their home park next week.
“At the end of the day, pitching makes a huge difference,” Stanton said, “and we’ve got a group of starting pitchers that have been phenomenal. ...
“So I feel great about where we are. And I feel great about our ability to finish strong and make the playoffs again.”
The Mariners have promoted Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo from Double-A Arkansas into their rotation so far this season. That was to back-fill for injuries to Seattle veteran starters Robbie Ray and Marco Gonzales.
Miller was the team’s fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft. In his major-league debut May 2 he allowed one run in six innings with 10. That set a Mariners record for most strikeouts in a debut.
In his first three starts Miller, 24, allowed just eight base runners. That broke a major-league record dating to 1901 for pitchers with at least 15 innings to begin a career. His WHIP of 0.421 was the lowest in MLB history through three career starts. May 24 Miller became the first pitcher since 1901 to pitch at least six innings while allowing four or fewer hits in his first five career appearances.
Woo, 23, was Seattle’s sixth-round pick in 2021. He got rocked early in his major-league debut June 3 at first-place Texas. But in his next 26 2-3 innings over five starts he went 1-0 with a 2.36 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings.
Mariners general manager Justin Hollander has hinted at the team possibly limiting Woo’s and Miller’s work over the second half of this season, as Seattle did with Kirby and fellow Mariners starter Logan Gilbert in each of the past two summers.
Between Arkansas and Seattle Woo has already passed by 15 2-3 innings the 57 innings he pitched in 2022. Woo had Tommy John ligament-replacement surgery in his elbow in 2021.
“We’re not just purely measuring innings. We’re measuring stressful innings, how hard they’re working in any given outing,” Hollander recently told reporters, per the Mariners’ team website.
Stanton on Wednesday mentioned a third Double-A pitcher he and his team are excited about.
“To see, Miller and Woo come up and play as well as they have I think is indicative of what we’ve got coming,” Stanton said. “I saw Emerson Hancock (24 and the sixth-overall pick in the 2020 Major League draft by Seattle) got an award recently (Texas League player of the week for Double-A Arkansas).
“To see some of the other young pitchers that are coming up — and to have the opportunity to have three picks in the draft (next week) that will start this Sunday, I believe we are the only team in 15 years to have three picks in the first round...according to Jerry and his team, this is a great (draft) year.
“So I feel great about where we are. And I feel great about our ability to finish strong and make the playoffs again.”
This story was originally published July 5, 2023 at 5:21 PM.
