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Sunday, May 5th, 2013

Dustin Ackley has been hitting the ball with a lot more frequency during the last 2 weeks of play. Due partly to bad luck and partly to bad at bat’s, Ackley got off to a 5-for-49 start in 2013. Fast forward to the present, and the Mariners Second Baseman is hitting .255/.290/.314 with a grand slam off of R.A. Dickey on Saturday.  He has hits in 9 of his last 10 games (13 – 36, .361 Batting Average in that time frame – raising him 55 Points overall in his season BA.)

Sam Evans ( Baseball Writer and Marlins, Mariners Correspondent): Follow @RJA206

Believe it or not, the Mariners are one of the hottest teams in baseball right now. After an ugly 8-15 start to the season, the Mariners have won six out of their last eight games, and are two games in front of the Angels in the A.L. West.

It’s unclear how long the Mariners will be able to continue to play this brand of baseball, but for the time being, Seattle is one of the most fun teams to watch in the Majors.

Thanks to young players like Dustin Ackley and Michael Saunders heating up and Hisashi Iwakuma and others shutting down other teams, the Mariners have become a much more dangerous team to face.

Iwakuma’s great start:

Hisashi Iwakuma has a 1.61 ERA over seven starts this season. He’s third in the American League among pitchers with at least 30 IP with 42 Strikeouts.

The lowest point in the Mariners season would have to be on April 24^th, when they had just lost two out of three games in Houston. Mike Morse and Michael Saunders were battling injuries, and aside from Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, the Mariners starting rotation looked like a mess.

However, in the last week or so, Michael Saunders and Morse have returned and Brandon Maurer, Aaron Harang, and Joe Saunders all seem to have figured some things out.

Joe Saunders has had three starts this season which made it seem as if he didn’t belong in the Majors. In those starts, Saunders has given up a total of 27 Hits and 19 Earned Runs.

However, in his other three starts, Saunders has gone an average of over 7 Innings. In his last start, Saunders threw a complete game against the Orioles, allowing only 2 Earned Runs.

Joe Saunders obviously has the potential to turn in starts like that but he can stay the entire year in the M’s rotation if he can figure out how to make his rough starts just a little more bearable.

He seems to have figured things out at the plate, and it has made a huge impact on the success of the Mariners in the last couple of weeks. Another hitter that has had a huge effect on the Mariners lineup is Kyle Seager.

Seager, who is hitting .292/.351/.492, has the third-highest wRC+ in the A.L. West at 146. Seager is only 25 years old and he is probably the top hitter on this Mariner’s roster. If the Mariners are to reach .500 this year, they will need Seager to continue to hit the way he has.

Overall, the Mariners have looked like a completely different team over the last two weeks. For a team that has set all-time low’s in attendance at Safeco Field this year, the Mariners need to continue to keep playing like this to keep their fans interested.

The Mariners obviously aren’t going to win their division and the playoffs seem out of the question, but .500 seems like a very attainable goal. If the Mariners can finish the season at .500, it will be because they have been playing as they have of late. With the union of young position players starting to heat up and the starting rotation getting into a groove, the Seattle Mariners have the potential to become one of the more promising teams in baseball.

*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***

A big thank-you goes out to our ‘Marlins and Mariners Correspondent’ Sam Evans for preparing today’s featured article. Sam is a high school student from the Seattle area.  He is a longtime Mariners fan, and has been an off-and-on season ticket holder for the last five years.

  Sam enjoys interacting with readers and digging beneath the surface to find the truth in baseball.  Sam was our 2nd Intern who has graduated to the position of  Baseball Writer. For all of Sam’s archived articles- click here. You can follow Sam on Twitter: Sam Also writes for the Marlins website Fish Stripes.Follow @RJA206

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