The Ballad of King Felix

We just finished game 113: a 2-0 co-op shut out tossed by Felix and Ardsma. Another outstanding start by King Felix, handcuffed by another disapointing game for every Mariner in the batting order. The Mariners offense isn't even a joke anymore, it's just fucking depressing.

The Mariners offense has been so abismal (dead last in MLB in every major statistical category except stolen bases) that it has completely overshaddowed the teams legitiment bright spot: Felix Hernandez.

The pitching as a whole has been decent, even after the trading of Cliff Lee. Outside of King Felix and his brilliance and the two months of Cliff Lee, Jason Vargas and Doug Fister have been more then serviceable. Unfortunalty, we also had to sit through a few months of turd sandwiches delieved by Ryan Rowland-Smith and Ian Snell (both of whom have since been placed in the Whitness Protection Agency).

Those schmucks included the Mariners have a team era of 3.93, which is good for 12th in the league. Not good, but certainly not bad. You can almost call it respectable. What's bad is that we are giving up almost four runs a game and only scoring 3.2 runs ourselves.

It's simple math, really: If you score 3 runs a game while giving up 4-you're gonna lose.

This team is so bad offensivly, it often feels like we'd have a better chance at tacking runs up with a Community College team. While doing the research, here are some of the jaw dropping highlights of their offsensive incompetence (I guess it would make more sense to call them 'lowlights'):

• Twice this season they have scored over ten runs :(
• They have been shut out 10 times .
• 69 games this season they have scored 3 runs or less.
• Twice this season they have been shut out in back to back games.
• They have scored 21 runs less then any team in baseball.
• They are flirting with becoming the first team since 1979 to score less then 200 runs in the second half of the season (Last team, 79 Padres).
• They have a team average of .236 while racking up an incredible total of 67 homeruns thus far.

This piece started off as a bitch session about the worst offensive team I've ever seen and a goodbye to Don Wakamatsu. After about 15 minutes of rock kicking, I was reminded of twho the bigger victim in this mess is: Felix.

For the vast majority of the season, Felix has pitched like his childrens lives depend on it. Somehow, despite being 4th in the AL(and 9th in MLB)in ERA, and 2nd in the AL in strike outs- he has posted a record of 8-9. That is the record befitting a third starter having a mediocre season, not an Ace who is pitching out of his mind. Which he is.

Felix, other then the people who pay tickets for every game other then the one he pitches, has been the biggest victim of our teams inabillity to produce anything on offense. To prove my point, lets look at the numbers:

• Twice this season we have scored 7 or more runs in a game for him.
• 7 of his 8 wins he has gone over 8 1/3 innings... including 5 complete games.
• In all 8 wins he has given up 2 runs or less
• In his 25 starts this season we have scored 5 runs or more 5 times.
• In 14 of his 17 losses or no decisions he has given up 3 runs or less.
• He leads ALL OF BASEBALL in quality starts.... that right there is the killer.
  

I'm not trying to prove that the Mariners are bad. All you need to do is pick up your daily news paper and see that they have a firm hold over the celler of the AL West Division to know that they blow goats. I just want to raise awareness of the victims from this mess. It's Don Wakamatsu, or any of the other coaches who got axed this week. It's our minor leaguers like Dustin Ackley and Justin Smoak who are waiting for thier call up, butfor some reason they are still waiting behind the shit crew we have up here right now(you can't tell me they would be any worse). It's Justin Vargas and Doug Fister who have suprised all of us with serviceable seasons.

It's the fans, who pay good money to watch this train wreck.

It's Felix, who shocked everyone by signing a long term extension a full year before he was set to test Free Agency. Now he is doing what he promised and delivers Cy Young caliber starts everytime he takes the mound.

Unfortunatly for him ( and fortunately for the Mariners organization and it's fans) the name on the front of his Jersey says the 'Mariners' and not 'Yankees', and unless he finds a way to get the other team to score negative runs.... he isn't going to win many more games this year.

Now that is depressing.