Looking back on April

Well, April is gone and it is May. So that means a fresh month for the Mariners. This month the Mariners will begin off in an interesting way, they start off the month of May against the Baltimore Orioles in the rubber match of a 3 game series at home. The M's will also start their interleague schedule to by traveling to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates for the first time since 2007 and it will be the M's second trip to Pittsburgh, the last time the M's played in Pittsburgh they swept the Pirates in a 3 game series, the Mariners have a record of 5-1 against the Pirates. During this month the Mariners will be suffering from homesickness as they will play 17 or the 26 games on the road. The Mariners finished off the month of April with a 12-17 record, in 3rd place, and only 6.5 games out of first place. Ok yes I know that this is just a "me telling you the stats of the month blog" but thats because its only the first paragraph. During this month the Mariners managed to hit .242. 

During the month of April the M's still had problems with their achilles heal team the Chicago White Sox as they went into Chicago and was able to win the first game of the series but lose the last 2 games putting the Mariners record at Comisky Park over the last 4 year to 4-15 and their total record over the last 4 years to 4-18, they also struggled against the Houston Astros as they have only managed 2 wins in the 6 games they have played against them this year. The Mariners first opponent on the road this month will be the Toronto Blue Jays, who are 10-17 to start the year. The Mariners have been hitting well over the last 8 games and along with hitting for average the M's have had power to back up the team as well. Mike Morse has hit 8 homeruns in April and to tell you the truth i cant even remember when a Mariner hit 8 homeruns in April or in that fact in one month! Kendrys Morales and Kyle Seager both have hit 3. Seager leads the team in hits with 31 and leads the team in batting average with a .292 average! Now for pitching the M's top pitchers Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma have both posted an ERA bellow 2, Felix with a 1.90 ERA and Kuma with a 1.67 ERA and both of them have also been striking out batters as well.

The Mariners only problem that they need to work on going into this month is hitting with runners in scoring position. The Mariners posted a .206 batting average with runners in scoring position for the month of April which is only 4th worst to the Chicago Cubs who are hitting .165 with runners in scoring position. If the Mariners are to make a run for the post season they have to figure out a way to get hits when it matters, and it matters when the bases are loaded with nobody out! Another woe for the Mariners is the pathetic batting of Brendan Ryan, Jesus Montero, and Raul Ibanez. All three are hitting bellow the Mendoza Line; Ryan is hitting .149, Ibanez stands at .158, and Montero is hitting .200. Fans are wondering when Wedge is going to put his foot down and send them down to the minors or release them and call up Mike Zunino and Nick Franklin. Another problem the M's will face is Aaron Harang who in his three starts has posted an 0-3 record with an 11.37 ERA and fans are wondering as well when Wedge will either go find another pitcher in free agency, make a roster move to bring up Jeremy Bonderman from Triple A, or release him. 

So from now on, every monthly recap ill make a prediction of how the team will do and for the month of May im going to say they will finish 17-10. This month i believe both Morse and Smoak will pick things up as they have towards the end of April.