Analysis: Where Mariners stand after 40-game mark

BOSTON – Former manager Lloyd McClendon used to say 50 games was his benchmark to determine success, while current manager Scott Servais has often said it takes at least 40 games to determine what a team is and what it can be.

Of course, if a team is playing well to start the season, managers don’t usually have to offer up such logic or numbers because they aren’t likely to say the success isn’t sustainable.

Though to his credit, when the 2019 step-back team started off 13-2, Servais cautioned plenty of people that his team couldn’t or wouldn’t keep winning games with how it was playing. That team, which wasn’t expected to be good, went 7-18 over the next 25 games and ended up losing 94 games on the season.

On Monday, the Mariners played their 41st game of the season, routing the Red Sox 10-1 in what was probably one of their most impressive and well-rounded wins of the season. They got their typical outstanding starting pitching, clean bullpen work, strong offensive showings from players expected to be producers and quality defense.

But now past his 40-game yardstick, Servais and the players will admit that there hasn’t been enough of those sort of performances in the first quarter of a much-anticipated 2023 season filled with lofty expectations.

The Mariners go into Friday’s game at Atlanta with a 21-22 record, which put them in fourth place in the American League West and five games behind the division-leading Rangers (26-17).

“Would I like to have won a few more games and be six or seven games over .500? Absolutely.” Servais said. “Do I think we have a good run in us here over the next 40 games? I really do.”

The Mariners have not had strong starts to their past few seasons, which is why Servais’ 40-game reference seems so familiar.

In 2021, Seattle was 21-20 in the first 41 games and finished with 90 wins. Last season, the Mariners were abysmal for the first two months of the season. They were 17-24 at the 41-game mark and hit a low point of 25-35 before ripping off a 29-10 stretch going into the All-Star break.

The hallmark of the previous two successful seasons was the Mariners’ ability to win one-run games. That hasn’t carried over to this season.

The Mariners are 4-11 in one-run games and 2-5 in extra-inning games.

“The reason we didn’t win a lot of close games, we didn’t get the big hit,” Servais said. “We weren’t scoring any runs. So hopefully the offense starts to be more consistent.”

The Mariners’ offense has been anything but consistent in the first 41 games.

What word would the players use?

“I wouldn’t say disappointed,” first baseman Ty France said. “I don’t even want to use the word frustrated. But we just know that we’re capable of so much more. You’ve seen our starters come out and give up one run and us not back it. That’s happened multiple times. That’s where the frustration comes from because we know we’re better than that. We know we are a good hitting team. All it takes is for one good game and we can hit our stride.”

The Mariners’ outburst of runs and homers in the 10-1 victory on Monday will help make their overall offensive numbers slightly more palatable.

Seattle is averaging 4.49 runs per game, which is slightly below the MLB average of 4.58. The Mariners have an overall slash line of .229/.307/.380. The batting average is among the worst in the league, with only the Guardians and Padres worse. The on-base percentage is the sixth lowest while the slugging percentage is in the bottom third. Perhaps most galling for Servais is the strikeouts. The M’s had struck out 398 times before Tuesday’s game; only the Twins and Athletics were worse (399).

Seattle’s situational hitting has also been substandard. The Mariners have had 80 plate appearances with a runner on third and fewer than two outs and scored 33 runs. That scoring percentage of 41.3% is fourth lowest in MLB. Of Seattle’s 64 plate appearances with a runner on second and no outs, only 21 runs have scored. The 32.8% success rate is the worst in MLB.

“Obviously, if you hit a ton of homers, you don’t have to be as efficient with runners in scoring position,” Servais said. “But good offenses, that’s what they do. The guys put the ball in play and they’re able to take balls to the opposite field. The big RBI players in the history of our game are guys who use the whole field. When they do that, they are tough outs.”

Servais admitted multiple times that his team can be too easy to pitch to.

“We strike out too much,” he said.

While Jarred Kelenic and J.P. Crawford have been more productive than expected, Julio Rodriguez, Eugenio Suarez and Teoscar Hernandez have underachieved. FanGraphs’ weight runs created plus (wRC+) is a rate metric that tries to determine total offensive value from a player, with the league average being 100.

Only Kelenic (148), France (118), Cal Raleigh (116) and Crawford (114) are above league average, while Rodriguez (94), Suarez (93) and Hernandez (93) are just below. The Mariners need – and expect – that trio to be much better than league average. Rodriguez posted a 146 wRC+ last season and Hernandez had a 129 wRC+.

“We need these guys to kind of do what they’ve done throughout their career,” Servais said. “If they do, we’re going to be in a really good spot with the guys who have already stepped up.”

And the pitching? Well, it’s been outstanding. Per FanGraphs, Seattle’s pitchers have produced an 8.9 wins above replacement (fWAR). The next-closest team is the Twins with a 6.7 fWAR The Mariners’ pitching staff also led MLB in earned-run average (3.24), fielding-independent pitching (3.20), soft-contact percentage (19.5), swing-and-miss percentage (49.2), zone percentage (44.4), fewest barrels (55) and barrel rate (5.3%).

“As long as we continue to pitch like we can, we’re going to be in a lot of these games,” Servais said. “Hopefully, the offense starts to be more consistent. We’ll look up after the next 40-game stretch and maybe we will be seven or eight games over, 500. I’d be surprised if we weren’t. I like our team. I liked it from Day 1. I think we’re a better team now than we were last year on paper. We’ve not done it yet. But the upside of this group is pretty high.”