Seattle Mariners Halfway Report: Facts, and Opinions
The 2021 MLB season is nearing the halfway point. So far the Seattle Mariners have been a pleasant surprise. Joe Swenson breaks down the season to date and adds his perspective.
We are nearing the halfway point of the 2021 MLB season and these Seattle Mariners have shown their fans many things. The M’s, up to the halfway point of the season, are young, talented, resilient, streaky, and many other adjectives. But overall, how does this Mariner’s team stack up?
Offense
Facts
The Mariners have so many injuries in 2021, it’s no wonder their offense got off to a horrid start. On the season the team is batting .215 and is improving. Over the last 28 days they are batting .239, and over the past two weeks, .243. While the offense has gotten better, the Mariners still have a long ways to go. MLB average in 2021 is .238 and .244 over the last two weeks.
Seattle is ranked in the bottom quartile (bottom five teams) in batting average (29th), OBP (30th), and OPS (29th). The M’s rank 24th in Slugging due to being slightly above league average in home runs (87) and doubles (120). Despite these low rankings, they average 4.0 runs per game, which is ranked 21st and approximately 0.5 runs better than their offensive peripherals show them to be.
The biggest reason for that is that the Seattle Mariners are clutch when it comes to hitting with runners in scoring position (RISP). In fact, only the Indians are better than the Mariners when it comes to cleaning up the bases with runners on second and/or third base. Seattle has the third-highest average in that department at .270. Some of which is luck as seen by their BABIP (Batting Average Balls In Play), which leads the bigs at .346.
Opinion
While the batting is improving, what happened over the last month, should the trend continue, will result in more runs scored. In addition, the Mariners are one of the best baserunning teams in the league with an average of 1.37 bases gained per game vs. league average. The combination of RISP and bases gained per game would lead anyone to believe that the Mariners will continue to score runs. Improved hitting to league average over the last two weeks also tells me that the sustainability of scoring runs over the rest of the summer is there as well.
Sustainability in scoring is the most important aspect of the offense and sustaining the effort that happened over the previous two weeks is critical to achieving success. Included in that is the clutch hitting that the Mariners exhibited recently. There are still too many strikeouts and streakiness built into the current roster. Seattle is very susceptible to getting blanked. The good news is this should happen less frequently as Seattle’s young hitters gain more experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJnBgC_Ovp4