A week ago the Mariners capped off their raucous deadline by landing two of the biggest pieces on the board and staking their claim on the AL West. They're currently 3 games behind the Astros, and considering the Astros lost a ton of games in Boston and the M's now have Naylor and Suarez, it's weird that it's not closer.
The reality is that both Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suarez have been a bit slower taking to Seattle than the team has liked. Naylor's hitting .211 over 10 games, Suarez is hitting .118 over 4. Suarez has yet to hit anything out. And at the same time, you'd think that Judge sitting for a week or so would give Cal Raleigh time to really heat up, but he's kind of slowed down. He's at 42 homers, which is still a lot but the rate has reduced. Besides, people are busy talking about Kyle Schwarber and his multi-homer games now.
The monolith seems to have sputtered. Not entirely, as Julio Rodriguez recently notched his 20th homer, meaning he's started his career with 4 straight 20-homer seasons. And honestly, even if you haven't been hearing about it as much, Julio's season has been pretty strong. He's been in every game basically, has a 4.5 WAR, 59 RBIs and a team-leading 117 hits. Not overwhelmingly amazing like Raleigh, but for the star guy he's been pretty strong. Same with Randy Arozarena in his first full season in Seattle, he's got a 4.1 WAR, 22 homers and 55 RBIs. The core of this team, even with Naylor and Suarez still heating up, is still pretty impressive, and is enough to keep competitors on their toes.
You've also seen the once-haphazard rotation calm down tremendously, as the highest ERA, Logan Evans's, is 4.30. Luis Castillo's season is not as flashy as some of his peak years, but he's still held down some big games for this team. He's got a 3.22 ERA, an 8-6 record and 115 Ks. More than anything else, Castillo is reliable, and he's the heart of this still young rotation. Woo, Gilbert and Kirby have been great too, and there's a possibility Bryce Miller will be back for the stretch. I know this rotation won't be nearly as unbeatable as it was last year, but they're still 5 pitchers in their prime throwing great stuff. That alone puts them ahead of a lot of their contemporaries.
I'm still very confident the Mariners can make a run with this team. The Astros are slowing down, the Rangers are slowing down, the field's opening up for them. And there really is enough energy to go around this year, rather than being confined to just one aspect of the team. Hopefully that gets them somewhere.
Coming Tomorrow- Every year since this guy left, the Red Sox have seen their main option at shortstop get injured. He must love that.
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