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Watch Live: Mariners take on Rangers in Free Game of the Day
It’s still August, so you might be skeptical about the idea of a team playing must-win baseball. We agree, mostly. So looking at the current state of affairs for the Seattle Mariners, we’ll just say they’ve entered a portion of their 2016 schedule in which winning would be really, really, really good for their postseason prospects.
The Mariners start a three-game series with the Texas Rangers on Monday, the same Texas Rangers that lead the M’s in the AL West by 8.5 games. Seattle then hosts the Angels for three games before hosting the Rangers for four more.
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Monday’s game is the Free MLB Game of the Day on Yahoo Sports, which means you can stream the game for free on on the Yahoo Sports app, Yahoo’s Sports Home, MLB index, video home and this very post. Local blackouts apply, per MLB rules. First pitch is at 8:05 p.m.
If the Mariners sweep the Rangers in three games, they aren’t suddenly fighting for first place in the division, but the opposite might be true. If the Rangers sweep the Mariners, their hopes of winning the AL West would basically be over. Because we’re playing baseball in 2016, the Mariners could still play for one of the two wild-card spots, so their season isn’t finished. But if they want to stay relevant in the division race, this first series with the Rangers is very important.
To that end, hitting is going to be paramount. The Mariners, as manager Scott Servais bemoaned prior to Sunday’s game against the Chicago White Sox, needed to get their offense rolling. He told the Seattle Times’ Ryan Divish:
“I would love to see us get on a hot streak,” he said. “I was thinking about things coming to the park this morning. Our pitching has been pretty good, it really has. To kind of carry us on the road today, especially going into Texas, I’d like to see our bats get going and carry us and start to put up a consistent five, six, seven runs on the board.”
Then the Mariners lost 4-1. It made for the third time in six games the M’s were held to one run or fewer, and the fifth time in six games they scored three runs or fewer. In that stretch, the Mariners were 1-5.
As Servais says, Seattle’s pitching has pretty good lately. Its 3.74 ERA ranks eighth in MLB for August, but in that same time, the M’s rank 19th in runs scored.
Plain and simple: The Mariners need to start hitting more. And with 7 of their next 10 games against the team they’re chasing, there’s no time better than right now.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
