{"id":5792,"date":"2017-05-12T17:54:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=5792"},"modified":"2017-05-12T17:54:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T21:54:45","slug":"seattle-mariners-back-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/05\/12\/seattle-mariners-back-500\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Mariners Got Back to .500"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>How the Mariners Got Back to\u00a0.500<\/h2>\n<p>Don\u2019t look now, but the Seattle Mariners are on a four-game win streak. Not only that, but they are back to .500 and in 2nd\u00a0place in the division. Over the last 10 games, they have gone 6-4, slowly creeping towards that elusive number.\u00a0They finally got there on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<h3>Getting it Done with the Bats<\/h3>\n<p>They just got done sweeping aside the Philadelphia Phillies in a short, two-game away series. They scored 21 runs off 32 hits. That is some explosive offensive power right there. This also included coming back from two four-run deficits. That marked only the second time in franchise history that had happened. Just for good measure, they added 11 walks and only 12 strikeouts, showing faith in Jerry Dipoto and his philosophy of &#8220;Controlling the Zone&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The M&#8217;s have C&#8217;ed the absolute heck out of the Z this series. Their lineup has drawn 11 walks and struck out only 12 times<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Lookout Landing (@LookoutLanding) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LookoutLanding\/status\/862403081153032192\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 10, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=gamel-001ben\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Ben Gamel<\/strong><\/a> came alive, going 6-9 with a home run, four RBI, and six runs scored. He also walked three times, showing that it wasn\u2019t a mistake to trade for him in the offseason. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/canoro01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Robinson Cano<\/strong><\/a> battled a stiff quad, but that didn\u2019t slow him. He finished the series 6-8 with two homers, five RBI, and three runs scored.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valenda01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Danny Valencia<\/strong><\/a> has been a big part of the Mariners march back to .500. Over his last 10 games, he has slashed\u00a0.342\/.375\/.605. He seems to have found\u00a0his power stroke again, with three home runs and 10 RBI. It was disappointing how much the career-.280 hitter stumbled out of the gate. During the first month of the season, it was no surprise the Mariners played so poorly. They had what seemed like black holes behind the plate and at first\u00a0base, at least on the offensive side of things.<\/p>\n<h3>Troubles on the Mound<\/h3>\n<p>The negative to take away from this series is that the pitching gave up 15 runs, which on a normal day wouldn\u2019t be a recipe for seeing a sweep by the visiting ballclub. Most of this was from their starting pitching. This team is going to be hurting for a little while with their injuries. They are hoping to get a few starters back by the next homestand, but nothing is certain. Until then, it is going to be fun watching who they send out to the mound.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Putting Iwakuma on DL leaves Gallardo as the only remaining healthy starter from projected rotation.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bob Dutton (@TNT_Mariners) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TNT_Mariners\/status\/862319986009935876\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 10, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The pitching in general this year for the Mariners has been bad, to say the least. However, in May, they have slowly begun to turn it around. They went from 14<span style=\"font-size: 12.5px;\">th<\/span>\u00a0in the AL with a team 4.71 ERA, to ninth\u00a0in the AL, at 4.27 ERA. With four fifths\u00a0of the starting rotation down, it will be up to the offense to carry them.<\/p>\n<h3>Moving Past .500<\/h3>\n<p>While the pitching hasn\u2019t really materialized for a variety of reason, the offense has turned the corner after a dreadful 2-8 start. The Mariners need the offense to keep up this pace. They need to make sure they don&#8217;t squander any scoring opportunities. The young guys stepping in need as little pressure on\u00a0them as possible. Seattle has a four- game series with the Toronto Blue Jays coming up, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=dejong000cha\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Chase De Jong<\/strong><\/a> scheduled to make his third start of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s to a few more #Swelmets over the weekend.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Nice W!! We fought all night for it. Great job by the pen. Motter had GW rbi 2b, but Gamel was The Man 4-5 2b, ?4 rbi&#8217;s. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TheSwelmet?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TheSwelmet<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Grind?src=hash\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Grind<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NoXe7aaF0v\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/NoXe7aaF0v<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Manny Acta (@MannyActa14) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MannyActa14\/status\/862156903153102852\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 10, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/682401658\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/682401658?et=PC8K_pQGSiZg83TJj3DBqg&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=ioqY_lyyf5KExURBQB7LLAQaukTWN9r2J2vA6e902aw=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Mariners Got Back to\u00a0.500 Don\u2019t look now, but the Seattle Mariners are on a four-game win streak. Not only that, but they are back to .500 and in 2nd\u00a0place in the division. Over the last 10 games, they have gone 6-4, slowly creeping towards that elusive number.\u00a0They finally got there on Wednesday. Getting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1719,"featured_media":5852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1071],"tags":[68,1247,654,69,365,158],"class_list":["post-5792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-ben-gamel","tag-danny-valencia","tag-mlb","tag-robinson-cano","tag-seattle-mariners"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1719"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}