Mariners looking for the right mix for second half of season

TORONTO — Searching for a word to describe the first 81 games of Seattle’s season? Bob Melvin came up with one Wednesday.

“Excruciating,” he said.

The second-year manager of the Mariners has never been through anything like this — as a rookie skipper, he was at the helm of a team that won 93 games.

“It’s the toughest three months I’ve had in baseball,” he said. “You expect to win at some point in the season, to see it turn around. It hasn’t.”

Out of spring training, Melvin didn’t argue when most national publications picked the Mariners to finish third in the American League West. A few things he’d seen in camp worried him.

And then came the opening series with Anaheim.

“I thought we’d compete in our division, and that first series was an eye opener,” Melvin said. “The Angels came into our ballpark and beat us soundly. They handed us our heads.

“Then we lost a couple in Oakland, and it never got a lot better. We never had a streak that got us close to .500.”

So now what?

“Start over in the second 81 games,” Melvin said. “Play winning baseball the second half. It’s easier to say there will be change than it is to do. You look at our roster, we don’t have a player on pace for more than 70 RBI — and it’s hard to win without scoring runs.”

Unless or until the roster changes, Melvin said, it’s tough to bench a handful of underachieving veteran players for rookies.

“You sit the veterans, you’re going to lose them and then you’ve got another problem entirely,” Melvin said. “But if we bring up the kids, they’ve got to play regularly.

“We have to find out about our kids in the second half. We’ve got to look at who can help us next year, who’s ready and who’s not.”

For sure, Melvin said, that will mean more playing time for catcher Miguel Olivo, acquired in the Freddy Garcia trade. And probably more for infielder Justin Leone and utilityman Willie Bloomquist.