The Mariners want to stay above .500 on the way home against the Giants

I’ll be honest. It sucks to be a Mariners fan right now. Yes, we have a long and storied history of poor performance, so you’d think we as a fan base would be used to it. Knowing you’re going to be bad is one thing. Starting the season off badly as a fan and just languishing around (or under) .500 is less heartbreaking.

Watching a 10-game lead not just disappear but start to spin in the other direction as you fall further and further out of the playoff race is simply one of the worst feelings a baseball fan can have. It would be like watching your favorite football team start 7-3 and finish the season 8-9. That’s how it feels right now. I don’t know about you, but every night I have little hope that the Mariners will do anything productive.

However, I’m trying to put those feelings behind me, just as I hope the Mariners put their problems in California behind them. They head home to face the Giants in a three-game series, and while the Giants are by no means an easy team, this is a chance for the Mariners to get in shape for these final 34 games and bounce back at the end of the season.

There was hope that we would see Robbie Ray of the Giants, simply because it was a familiar face who used to pitch for the Mariners. He is not scheduled to pitch in this series, but the Mariners will see Blake Snell, so at least we can finally see the pitcher that literally every fan at T-Mobile wanted to see pitch, even if he will be in a different uniform.

The Mariners have been terrible on offense. Even with the signing of Robles and the trades for Arozarena and Turner, the team has the second worst offense in all of baseball, only better than the White Sox, who aren’t even trying to field a major league level team. We all know the Mariners have a chance in every game because of their starting pitchers, and throwing Castillo-Kirby-Woo makes you feel good about their chances… they just need to score 3-4 runs, which is easier said than done.

Let’s go back to Snell for a minute before we wrap this up. Kirby vs. Snell. Kirby gets a lot of crazy matchups, he’s already faced Skubal twice in the last month. Now he gets Blake Snell. Snell has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since coming off the IL on July 9. In those eight starts, he has a 1.03 ERA, one no-hitter, and opponents are hitting just .117/.193/.170 against him. I’m worried he might throw his second no-hitter of the year against the Mariners.

If anything, we’ll see an incredible matchup of pitchers in the second game of the series. Birdsong opens the series for the Giants with a 5.01 ERA and Harrison closes it with a 4.00 ERA. The Mariners’ best chance might be their first game, but we all know this team shows up at the most unpredictable times. Let’s hope this Giants series is the start of something good and that the Mariners can get back on track now that they’re at home in Seattle.