Until Monday, the Mariners were rolling.
They were coming off a comeback-riddled series with Oakland, in which they came out on top. Wakamojo was at full force.
Since then, the Seattle Mariners have lost four games in a row, and in a very disheartening manner.
Half of these losses came in the form of a 2 game sweep at the hands of the now division leading Texas Rangers. During the Texas series, we also lost one of our top performing relievers in Sean Kelley. It's looking like he's going to be on the DL for an extended period of time.
After being dealt another two-game sweep by Kansas City, it's become apparent that there are a lot of things that need to happen for the M's to get back on track.
First and foremost, Carlos Silva needs to be out of the rotation. After giving up 6 runs in 3 innings on Wednesday, Wakamatsu has made it fairly clear that he's finally taking action. This is very good news, as we have a lot of young pitchers that couldn't possibly do any worse than Silva has. Namely, Vargas and Jakubauskas.
Adrian Beltre needs to start hitting. I'm not too worried about this, as I'm confident that his slump is not going to last. One must remember that in 2006 he didn't hit his first home run for 24 games, but he still went on to hit 25 and cash in with a modest .268 average.
Right now he's pressing, which is understandable given the way that he's been hitting, but if he wants to break out of it he needs to relax and take a better approach to the plate. It's imperative that we get better production from the middle of our order.
Something needs to be done about Yuniesky Betancourt. Any Mariners fan who's been paying any attention knows this. It either needs to be pounded into his head that he needs to take some pitches, or he needs some time on the bench.
I don't think that he, or Cedeno for that matter are the long term answers at shortstop, but it appears that we may have to make due with them until Carlos Triunfel is ready for the big leagues.
Ronny Cedeno did finally get a start yesterday in Kansas City, but as you may expect out of anyone that's been on the bench for two weeks, he was not impressive. Not only did he go 0-3 with 3 K's, but he also made a crucial error to let the first run of the game score.
He had such a poor showing that they even brought in Yuni to pinch hit for him with the game on the line. Incredibly, Yuni was able to work a walk, which was hopefully a sign of things to come. Hey, a guy can dream can't he?
I, for one, am not ready to count the Mariners out just yet.
Our upcoming series against Minnesota is indeed an important one, though. We need to end this losing streak tonight, before this thing gets carried away.
We have Jakubauskas, Felix, and Bedard going against a struggling Twins team. If that's not good enough for a series win, than I don't know what is.
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