Analysis: Will July be any kinder to Mariners after late-June swoon?

SEATTLE – Call it a late-June swoon.

As the Seattle Mariners enter the fourth month of the 2024 season, the third month ended in forgettable fashion.

As they did in April and May, the Mariners finished with a winning record in June. It just didn’t feel that way.

They finished June with a 15-12 record. But eight of those losses came in their last 11 games.

And they were ugly losses, featuring even worse offensive production than their usual tepid showings. In those 11 games, Mariners hitters combined to post a .194/.273/.319 slash line in 405 plate appearances with 12 homers, three triples, nine doubles, 36 runs scored, 32 RBIs, 35 walks and 123 strikeouts. In the eight losses, they scored 17 runs.

By comparison, the Mariners were 12-4 in the first 16 games, posting a .222/.323/.404 slash line and averaging five runs per game.

For the folks who are enraged by their propensity to strike out, the Mariners had 10 players with 60 plate appearances or more in June – all of them struck out in at least 20% of them. Luke Raley (36.1%), Dylan Moore (33.8%) and Dominic Canzone (31.3%) were the highest, while J.P. Crawford (20.7%) had the fewest. Only Canzone (.268) and Raley (.263) had batting averages above .250, and five players were under .200.

Will July be any kinder to the Mariners?

It will be a month that’s interrupted with the All-Star break and will feature 30 days of speculation, rumors and anxiety with the MLB trade deadline on July 30.

The Mariners obviously need to improve their offense and add some depth to their bullpen, but the trade market has yet to truly develop with only a few teams defined as sellers.

The month starts with a three-game seriesversus Baltimore Orioles – perhaps the best team in the American League – followed by the annual invasion of Toronto Blue Jays fans from Canada.

Seattle has seven gamesversus the Los Angeles Angels and three gamesagainst the Chicago White Sox – though playing bad teams hasn’t proved to be a guarantee for wins.

The biggest series will be a three-game setagainst the Houston Astros at T-Mobile Park on the weekend coming out of the All-Star break (July 19-21).

The Mariners are presumably going to get stronger with relievers Gregory Santos (lat strain) and Gabe Speier (rotator cuff strain) expected to return from the injured list in the coming weeks and starter Bryan Woo (hamstring strain) expected to be ready to go shortly after he’s eligible to return from the injured list.

For the Mariners to hold off the Astros and maintain their lead spot atop the American League West, they need their everyday lineup to be significantly better than it has been this season.

Julio Rodriguez still can’t seem to refind his swing, approach and power. In his last 14 games of June, he posted a .143/.200/.196 slash line in 60 plate appearances. Of his eight hits, he had one homer with three RBIs, four walks and 12 strikeouts.

The FanGraphs’ metric weighted runs created plus (wRC+) is an all-encompassing measure for a player’s offenseive impact in creating runs with 100 being average. Of players with a qualified number of plate appearances, Rodriguez ranks 128th in MLB with an 84 wRC+. In 2022, he had a 146 wRC+ and a 126 wRC+ in 2023.

Of players with 220 plate appearances this season, only Raley (117), Dylan Moore (113), Ty France (106) and Josh Rojas (103) have a wRC+ over 100 this season.

While fans want the M’s to trade for a hitter, even the best hitter available on the market might not be enough to make the offense viable without some increased production from players like Rodriguez, Crawford, Jorge Polanco and the combo of Canzone and Mitch Haniger.