Lost weekend

I think we all had a good idea that the Seattle Mariner season was going to be a long one, but hey, we were looking forward to Edgar getting introduced as a Hall of Fame inductee. The Seattle faithful was so proud and happy for such a great all around guy who had some defining moments for the Mariners.

The 1995 Mariners saved baseball in Seattle with Griffey, Edgar, Randy Johnson, Dan Wilson, Jay Buhner and Lou Piniella to name a few. This year we have seen a bunch of trades that we knew were going to happen. The idea was to get young talent with the trades and build the farm system with winners and bring them up through the Double A and Triple A teams.

When the Mariners were in Texas there were interviews done with the Mariners’ AA Arkansas affiliate. The guys they interviewed were impressive and sounded confident. I hope they can continue to play as well as they can speak to the media.

To me those interviews spoke volumes. What it said was, “Hey, we know the Mariners aren’t very good this year, but look at the guys who will be playing here in a year or two. Or maybe even after the call up in September when rosters expand. Maybe we’ll see some of those boys then.”

There is no doubt that Mariner fans will hope to see a winner or at least something that resembles a competitive product. In years past we would see a slumping player that would hit a home run or get a couple of hits and knock in a few runs after enduring a slump. The announcers were so in hopes that the slump was over only to see the player have more problems with consistency.

This past weekend was a tribute to Edgar Martinez and his Hall of Fame career. Three games with the Tampa Bay Rays with Edgar speaking to the crowd on Saturday night and throwing out the first pitch on Sunday. We were all in hopes that this would be motivation for the Mariners to get some hits and win some games but the M’s lost all three games. Close, but no cigar so to speak. The bull pen gave up three runs in the ninth on Friday, came up short by a run on Saturday and lost 1-0 on Sunday losing the game to former Mariners adding insult to a weakened roster.

The sad part of some of the trades that have happened over the years is that so many of these can’t miss guys would get injured and never play a game for Seattle. Many others were so good someplace else but not so much in the Pacific Northwest.

The Mariners also picked up a player or two that raised havoc with Mariner pitching and we just knew that this guy would play the part of Mighty Mouse and come in and save the day. Turns out the individual in question was traded because he wasn’t very good anymore. It also turned out that the player was a toxic personality in the locker room and did a lot more harm than good.

The Mariners may be doing it the right way this time by bringing these guys along as teammates and winning as teammates. Hopefully these youngsters will play just as good as they can do an interview. Seattle is hungry for a consistent winner and maybe we’ll see it in a couple of seasons or so. At this point in time most of us would settle for a .500 ball club.

What is difficult to stomach is a lost weekend that was supposed to be a tribute to a great Mariner and former hitting coach. But no such luck. I remember the ‘Refuse to lose’ team and this team should be nicknamed ‘Struggles to win.’