Analysis: Why Mariners’ (very early) strikeout trends are troubling
TORONTO – As they exited Toronto with a much-needed victory, featuring Cal Raleigh tormenting Blue Jays fans once again, there seemed to be a general relief surrounding the Mariners. And no, it wasn’t because announcer Aaron Goldsmith magically found his missing passport before they took off.
They found a way to prevail in a game in which they did more things right than wrong in all facets of the game.
The road trip may have ended on a positive note, but the sum was still a negative in wins and losses (2-4) and level of play.
Really, the same could be said for the start of the 2024 season. The Mariners might be fortunate to have a 5-8 record. Given the inconsistency of their overall performance thus far, a 3-10 record could have been just as plausible.
That’s the larger concern for the front office and manager Scott Servais. It’s not the record, which is below middling, but how they’ve played to get that record.
“We have not played well,” Servais said before Wednesday’s win.
He’s mentioned some form of that sentence far too often for his liking in these first 13 games.
“We know we are better than this,” Raleigh said after a loss on Monday. “Yeah, it’s early, but we have to start playing better.”
The results haven’t been great, but it’s the path, er, play that’s led to those results that have left Servais disappointed and perplexed. In the final weeks of spring training, when MLB players are on the field the bulk of the time, he saw his team play a better brand of baseball.
But when the games started to count, all the potential warts and weaknesses to lead to failure seemed to appear at once. The starting pitching, the rock (pun intended) of the team, has been inconsistent. A supposedly improved offense continues to strike out at a ridiculous rate while not scoring many runs. And the defense, which was expected to be worse than last season, has been significantly worse to the point of losing games.
To steal a line from Servais, “you say all that” and at least it’s difficult for Twitter to make “54%” jokes with a 5-8 record.
Yes, it’s a slower start than Servais wanted or expected. And it’s probably the wrong year to start slowly with so many fans angry at ownership’s refusal to increase payroll yet again, and their reasons for it. It’s not that those fans want them to fail, they just expect it.
But given the slow start to other teams in the division, specifically the Astros (4-10), it’s not catastrophic.
Others lament the slow start as a disappointing trend for past seasons and how it might crush their postseason hopes. They missed the postseason in 2021 and 2023 by a game or two. It’s easy to go back to all those early losses from slow starts and point to them as the blame. But you can find just as many bad losses at all parts of the season. Yes, a game lost in April counts just as much as a game lost in September. The difference being there are more games left to steal a win to offset that bad loss than September. A 5-8 stretch of bad baseball can happen in September and it’s even more punitive.
A year ago, after the Mariners’ magical August when Julio Rodriguez put up video-game numbers and didn’t seem to make an out while the team went 21-6, they followed it up with a 5-8 stretch of less-than-stellar baseball. Of course, it was almost expected since they wouldn’t sustain that pace of winning as their competition got better and Rodriguez wouldn’t continue to hit over .450, because that just doesn’t happen.
It should be just as logical to think that the Mariners’ current run of bad baseball will improve. The starting pitching won’t be as inconsistent because, well, it’s really good and has proven to be really good over the course of the past two seasons. And it’s also fair to expect Rodriguez, J.P. Crawford, Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver will pick up their hitting because they’ve never been this bad for an extended period of time.
During that 13-game stretch from Sept. 1 -13 last season with road games at the Mets, Reds and Rays and home games vs. the Angels, the Mariners posted a .235/.299/.423 slash line with 58 runs, 21 homers, 32 walks and 125 strikeouts. The pitchers worked 1122/3 innings, allowing 62 runs (56 earned) on 115 hits, including 20 homers with 41 walks, 13 hit by pitches, 116 strikeouts and four quality starts.
In the 13 games to start the season, the Mariners hitters have produced a .207/.278/.324 slash line with 42 runs, 12 homers, 37 walks and 138 strikeouts. The numbers are putrid, particularly the strikeouts, but have come against better pitching. Mariners pitching has produced a 4.84 ERA in 1151/3 innings pitched with 63 runs allowed (62 earned) on 116 hits with 34 walks, seven hit batters, 115 strikeouts and four quality starts.
The strikeouts are a problem. Servais spent the entire spring preaching to players about having a two-strike approach. Their two-strike hitting numbers were better in the spring. Now, they are producing a .132/.212/.173 slash line with two strikes. While no team is going to be great with two strikes, the league average is a .163/.248/.245 slash line.
They are swinging at 63.9% of pitches in the strike zone, which is one of the lowest in MLB, and making contact 79.3% of the time, which is also near the bottom of the league. They are also swinging and missing at 28.2% of the overall pitches they’ve seen, which is fourth-worst in MLB. You can laud the swing decision, but it’s somewhat moot if they don’t at least make contact.
After moving on from Eugenio Suarez, Teoscar Hernandez and Jarred Kelenic, this lineup was supposed to strikeout less.
Coming into Thursday, the Mariners led MLB with a 29.2% strikeout rate, with the Twins just behind them at 28.5%. The same two teams led MLB in strikeout percentage last season in reverse order.
Seattle has eight players with strikeout percentages higher than 25, including Rodriguez (32.7%), Garver (30%) and Polanco (35%) – all higher than their career averages.
Of course, there is the issue of off-speed pitches, too. Of the 1,183 pitches they’ve seen this season, 59.1% have been cutters, breaking balls or other off-speed pitches, which is third-most in MLB. They are hitting .198 against those pitches and swinging and missing at 7.1%, third-highest in MLB.
And of those 1,183 pitches, 47.6% have been cutters or some variation of a slider or curveball – the second-highest in MLB. The Mariners are hitting .186 against those pitches and have swung and missed at 8.2% of those pitches.
Perhaps here’s the larger problem. Of those 770 fastballs the Mariners have seen this season, they are batting .220 with a .339 slugging percentage – both the fourth-worst in MLB. So when they do get fastballs, they aren’t getting hits or doing damage.
The first 13 games haven’t been season-defining. There will be another stretch like this again. But if the next 13 games are the same, then there are real problems.
The Mariners after 13 games under manager Scott Servais.
2024: 5-8
2023: 5-8
2022: 7-6
2021: 8-5
2020: 5-8 (60-game season)
2019: 11-2
2018: 8-5
2017: 5-8
2016: 5-8