Mariners: August in Review

What an August. This month we saw the 1 step forward, 1.5 steps back Seattle Mariners continued their frustrating dick tease of a 2012 season.

• Felix: he won 4 of his 5 starts, posting a 1.08 era. He had three (COUNT THEM THREE!!!) 1-0 shutouts including the August 15th Perfecto. He now has the city of Seattle and the Cy Young race by the balls. All Hail the King.
• On the flipside, Justin Vargas was not good. After winning the July Pitcher of the Month award, the dude went awol. In 5 starts, he went 1-2 with a 5.12 era and is responsible for a broken tv remote in my apartment.
• Justin Smoak got called back up thanks to another Mike Carp injury. His time in Triple A did him no good. Mr. Smoak, who batted .196 in his 51 at-bats since being recalled, has struck out more then his actual base hits this season. Alot more. He has 98strike outs compared to his 75 hits.
• Dustin Ackley seemed to turn it around a bit. After turning in a lovely .173 average for July, he hit .257 (including 3 homeruns) in August. Lets hope he can get hot in September.
• Seager (.244 w/ 4 home runs) Montero (.233 w/ 4 home runs) and Jaso (.266 w/ 3 home runs). Thats the middle of our lineup. No jokes needed.
• Brenden Ryan continues his quest to be an every day shortstop who bats under the Mendoza line for a full season. With 1 month to go, he is currently at .195.

How this team went 15-12, is beyond me. Actually,  scratch that. They sent Felix to the mount every 5th day. So that helps. But seriously, lets send up a flair. We need some help in this batting order. Or atleast some HGH.

The worst part about it: you don't hear about hitting prospects with this team. Two years ago, we had Smoak and Ackley to think about. Now all you hear about is Zito, Hudson, Mulder jr that we have in Hultzen, Wagner and Paxton. Where the hell is our hitters? How can one organization be THIS bad at developing hitters. Even Pittsburgh had developed Alverez and McCutcheon.

The Seattle Mariners have not developed and kept a solid major league hitter since Alex Rodriguez. All the other good ones have been involved in illadvised, short sided deals. That list is fairly long: Adsrubal Cabrera, Shin-Shoo Choo, Jose Cruz, Adam Jones etc.

On The brighside, Football is 9 days away. I do love this team. Despite the struggles they have kept me involved. Which says alot. But there are issue that can't continue to be ignored. Jack, you got some work to do, brother.