The Seattle Mariners( 62-43) are losing their winning swag and have been frozen with their lackadaisical offense. In June the Mariners were the hottest team in the AL West-winning 19 games and losing just nine. The Mariners have hit a major slump heading into the month of August. The Mariners are 4-6 in their last ten games and have a four-game lead over the Oakland Athletics who are breathing down their necks for second place in the Division.
“The offense has kind of cooled down. That’s baseball. It’s going to happen once in a while,” shortstop Jean Segura said. “Everybody is dragging, even myself. Every time we go out there we’re trying to do the best that we can … and sometimes it’s going to be one of those games where you’re dragging and it’s going to be a (lot of) close games down the stretch. One of those teams is going to separate to make it to the playoffs because those kinds of games you’re going to need to advance to the playoffs.”
July was the devil for the Mariners. They could not get their offense rolling and struggled to get teams off of the mound. The Mariners played 18 games this month and have only 3.2 runs per game.
“I think every team out there has areas of the whole team they need to improve and get better at. The offense for us has been a little bit of a struggle putting up big numbers, to go out there consistently and put up five, six runs every game. When we do that we win. Most teams do because our pitching is pretty good. It just hasn’t been easy for us here the last 20 games,” said Scott Servais.
With American League West leaders Houston Astros (67-40) coming into town, the Mariners will need substantial productivity from their bench if they are to make up the four-game difference between the two teams. A series win over the Astros could go a long way in restoring confidence to a team in need of a major boost of confidence.
