The offense is just so bad. So utterly despairingly bad. And yet, even after this monstrosity of a four-game series — a four game set they actually managed to split against a much better foe — the offense is still well ahead of both 2010 and 2011's version. I'm not sure there's any one thing that can encapsulate wholly the full scale of terrible we've witnessed going on five seasons now, but seeing how much better this year's bats compare against last year's feels like such a measure. Progress has never felt so pointless.

If there's one thing, and there might be only one thing, the Mariners' offense has been able to do this past week or so it's draw walks. They have 19 free passes in their last six games, a reasonable and respectable number with 36 strikeouts. They have only 31 hits. They had only 39 total bases. They have one home run. They scored only nine times.

Relative to how the rest of baseball does at home and on the road, the Seattle Mariners have a 105 OPS+ on the road and a 54 OPS+ at home.

P/PA = pitches per PA [avg~3.8], nBB = uBB + HBP, Sw = swinging [avg~45%], Ct = contact [avg~81%], Qual+ = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, higher is better]

Let's see, Jesus Montero: bad, Michael Saunders: bad, Justin Smoak: bad, Miguel Olivo: haha, Dustin Ackley: >:(, Casper Wells: awesome, but not hitting, the jerks have even infected Kyle Seager! And Franklin Gutierrez is back on the disabled list. Yeah, that'll show you to get on base!

I hope John Jaso doesn't become 2012's Ryan Langerhans. I hope he starts out as 2012's Ryan Langerhans and then goes on to actually get playing time and continue being good.

Not included, but now present: Jim Thome!

A gigantic rebound in the outfield defense which is not terribly surprising given how many fly balls were given up over the course of the four-game set. Most of them were caught as although the Mariners couldn't score in the baseball equivalent of a brothel, Safeco Field is currently the baseball equivalent of a nunnery and at least the Red Sox couldn't land either.

The vast majority of us did not think that it would take until July of 2012 for Hisashi Iwakuma to make his first Major League start. He still might not! That would be sad, I presume, and make this paragraph a little embarrassing. It would also leave the Mariners in quite a pickle which is not a place one wants to find him or herself. Pickles are quite acidic and it's hard to breathe while inside one.

Lookout Landing does not endorse immersing your corporeal body in a pickle.

Felix Hernandez is ours and shut up. Shut up and like it.

Hector Noesi might have the worst sinker of all time. Even witches are better at sinking. It may be as simple as getting that pitch back on track for Noesi to become effective again. A big part of his home-run problems have been due to elevated pitches and his overall ground ball is certainly poor. Mayhaps getting the sink back would kill two birds with one pitch, proverbially speaking, to the people who hate birds.

Str% = strike rate [avg~63%], Ct% = contact rate [avg~78%], GB% = groundball rate [avg~45%], Qual- = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, lower is better], LI = leverage [avg~1.2]

Somehow Oliver Perez has thrown the highest rate of strike, by quite a margin to boot, of anyone on the team. I mean, it's not really "somehow" like it's totally unknown how. He threw strikes. We're familiar with those and even the worst Major League pitchers throw them more than half the time. It's just unexpected that Perez's rate is so high so far is all. I'm sorry.

Series Beer(s): No-Li Chocolate Dunkel
This is my digital shout-out to the really east side. When I last managed to try this beer out of Spokane's No-Li (née Northern Lights) brewery, it had a nice flavor of chocolate and wheat blend with a little hint of sweet berry at the finish.