Some things are common in the Pacific Northwest’s spring. Unfortunately for the Seattle Mariners, a slow start from their offense happens to be one of them.

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In a highly anticipated season with World Series aspirations, the Mariners are once again facing some early-season struggles at the plate. They entered Thursday last in MLB in all three triple-slash categories and second to last in runs scored.

Yahoo Sports writer and co-host of the Baseball Bar-B-Cast podcast Jordan Shusterman sees something different about this slow start from the Mariners offense than ones in past years. He shared what that is with Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy on Wednesday.

“It’s been a little bit different. Normally when we’ve had the conversation of, ‘Wow, when are they going to start scoring runs to support this pitching?’ You’re looking at the names in the lineup and you’re like, ‘Well, how good are you expecting this offense to be?’” Shusterman said. “That has often been the case in the past few years. This time, you’re looking at the names and you’re saying, ‘How is this team struggling to this degree?’”

The good news for the Mariners has been that their pitching staff has looked more like the 2024 version of itself than last year’s. However, it hasn’t been enough to avoid a 4-9 start that is tied with the Detroit Tigers for the worst in baseball.

With nearly 150 games left on the schedule, Shusterman isn’t too concerned with Seattle stumbling out of the gates.

“There’s still time for them to get hot,” he said. “I mean, just think about some of the runs that Seattle went on last year, not just at the end of the season, but even last year at the end of April. … They’re capable of piling up wins in a hurry. And if you are going to get the pitching like this, then you don’t need everybody to start hitting, but you are going to need some of those main guys to start being a little bit more productive.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Bump and Stacy weekdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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