Mariners need more than just improved offense to win

ANALYSIs

At first glance, that loss on Sunday looked like a microcosm of all that has gone well and all that has gone poorly for the Mariners in the first half of the season.

In reality, it was the punctuation of a troubling trend that has haunted the Mariners recently.

This, remember, has been the best one-run team in baseball over the past nine seasons — particularly over the past four. But ... their past four defeats, all in the span of seven games, have been by a single score.

The big fear is that this club would eventually be lassoed by the law of averages that exposes its anemic offense and lack of timely (or any) hitting. And though the M’s still hold a one-game lead over the Astros and a five-game lead over the defending World Series-champion Rangers, the taste in their mouths heading into the All-Star break is as foul as an Andrew Dice Clay special.

The first seven innings of Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Angels, after all, reflected the best the Mariners had to offer. It saw All-Star starting pitcher Logan Gilbert allow just two hits over seven scoreless innings, sending him into the All-Star break as Major League Baseball’s leader in innings pitched. Seattle has the second-best ERA among starting pitchers in MLB, and that’s with No. 5 man Bryan Woo battling injuries all season. That group, along with the bullpen, has carried this club.

But the generalities and specifics of the Mariners’ offensive shortcomings were on display Sunday. In general, the Mariners haven’t been able to score or put the ball in play all year, as they rank 27th in runs and 30th in batting average. They had four hits Sunday. They are also tops in MLB in strikeouts, and fanned 15 times Sunday.

But if you want specifics — it’s that they can’t bring anybody home once they get on base. Twice Sunday, Seattle had the bases loaded but failed to capitalize. “Timely hitting” is what Mariners manager Scott Servais has been preaching all year, but it’s disappeared as the M’s have dropped seven of their past eight series.

As for the Angels? They epitomized timely hitting Sunday. With two on in the bottom of the eighth, Jo Adell — who’s hitting .190 — popped a three-run homer off Austin Voth to put his squad up by one. It was one of just three hits for the Halos all day.

In Seattle’s defense, reliever Ryne Stanek suffered a back spasm two at-bats earlier that thwarted the Mariners’ game plan. But that underscores the need for another reliever, which could prove nearly as valuable as that magic bat fans are hoping to secure at the trade deadline.

After the game, Gilbert — whose 2.79 ERA is 10th in MLB — expressed his optimism about the future while confessing his team is in a skid.

“I feel like the team is in a really good spot,” he said. “We’re not playing our best baseball right now. It’s honestly good timing that we can take a few days and come back. I feel like we’re really close to where we need to be.”

Servais, whose team gave away two late leads in Anaheim, weighed in as well.

“We lost three games by one run in this series,” the skipper said. “Consistent offense was an issue here the last couple of nights. We didn’t get much going there and you’ve got to do more offensively to win these series on the road so I can’t fault our pitching.”

Gilbert was right about the timing of the break. Four Sundays ago, the Mariners (52-46) held a nine-game lead over Houston and an eight-and-a-half game lead over Texas. The lead over the Astros has nearly vanished.

So now the players wait to get back to the field and fans wait to see what the front office does. No one bat will save this Mariners offense, which needs to get more production from mainstays such as Julio Rodriguez, J.P. Crawford and Cal Raleigh. But it can help.

And though it doesn’t seem as though the M’s need much help on the pitching front, Sunday made clear what one more reliable arm could do.

The M’s are in this thing, and have the potential to go deep in the playoffs given their pitching. This first half was good, but nowhere near good enough.