By Blaidd Drwg
Reason # 12434231 why the Mariners need to do something about their offense. I am a big fan of On Base Percentage – if you can’t get on base, you can’t score and walks are a great thing. It is nice to see the Mariners finally embracing that concept. The problem is, they seem to have sacrificed hitting for power (slugging) in the meantime. It is pretty rare to see a guy with a higher on base than slugging percentage, especially a month after the season starts – the Mariners have 3 (and almost 5) of those guys in their lineup.
I give you the Mariners’ lineup (before tonight’s game – including the catcher platoon):
| Player | OBP | SLG | Difference |
| Ichiro | .371 | .380 | -.009 |
| Figgins | .351 | .278 | +.073 |
| Gutierrez | .393 | .475 | -.082 |
| Lopez | .250 | .290 | -.040 |
| Griffey | .269 | .226 | +.043 |
| Bradley | .313 | .371 | -.058 |
| Kotchman | .303 | .425 | -.122 |
| Johnson | .367 | .306 | +.061 |
| Moore | .200 | .209 | -.009 |
| Wilson | .266 | .338 | -.072 |
Folks, this is one of the worst lineups in baseball. You have 3 guys in Figgins, Griffey and Johnson who have combined for exactly 9 extra base hits in 188 At Bats, you have a cleanup hitter with a .250 OBP and a .290 SLG and this list doesn’t even cover Sweeney, Byrnes and Tuiasosopo who managed to squeeze out a collective .250 OBP with a sub-.200 SLG in 90 AB.
As I said to Mrs. Drwg over the weekend, you don’t feel like this team can score since it seems like it takes at least 3 hits in an inning for them to get 1 run.
Post Script: In watching tonight’s game, the announcers mentioned that Guti’s HR was the first one the Mariners have hit since April 23rd – That is over 8 games ago. Time to get a bat Z.
FlatbreadGarden 