The Mariners are Mortal

The M’s finally showed us they are mortal—losing three games in a row, losing a series on the road and being swept for the first time all year. But relax, winning series is no longer the Mariner’s primary goal. Their focus, since they won the AL West, is getting ready for the post season.

While they want to keep winning and break the AL and ML win records, that would just be icing on an already sweet season. In the games before the play-offs, you might not see Lou using all of his best players in every game or every situation. You might not see the same team you saw all year, or the team you will see later in October and November.

We can partially excuse last weekend’s massacre at Oakland and the last game against the Angels because they were not playing with all their regulars. They were without Bell, Boone (for most of it) and Martin due to injuries. Lou was also trying to let a lot of reserves play so he can make decisions about who to use in the post season if he needs them. Excuses aside though, we saw signs that the guys might have let down a little, mentally, after an emotional couple of weeks.

Obviously, the pitching was not up to par. Some of the pitchers were off for two weeks because of the terrorist attacks, but even Freddy, who pitched well five days earlier, faltered. You can bet pitching will be a key in the play-offs, and Lou will be trying to let everyone get as much work as possible without overworking them.

Defensively and offensively they did not look sharp either. Maybe if they had turned a double play when they had the chance, if a base runner had not been caught off base, or if they had gotten some clutch hits when they had men on base, the outcome would have been different.

Perhaps some of you are worried about what a few media pundits predicted—the collapse of the Mariners at the end and the A’s coming on strong to beat them out in the play-offs. It seemed like that was happening over the past weekend, but relax, the Mariners will not stay down long. Let them be a little “mortal” for now. By the end of the post season, they will likely clinch a place alongside the all-time great teams in history—a place in immortality.

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