In 2014, the Seattle franchise will be welcoming in a new coach – as Eric Wedge will not be returning for another year as the team’s skipper. As Safeco Field closes it’s roof for the season, let’s take a look back at the brighter moments from the Mariners abysmal 2013 year – in which they finished 71 – 91, only good for 4th in the AL West.
Sam Evans ( Baseball Writer and Marlins, Mariners Correspondent): Follow @RJA206
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The Seattle Mariners 2013 season left a lot to be desired.
The Mariners continued to lose fans as they didn’t play competitive baseball for the majority of the season. However, there were some memorable highlights and breakout performances that made the Mariners season slight more bearable.
Here’s a look back at the more enjoyable aspects of the Mariners 2013 regular season.
SEA @ OAK: Farquhar fans Cespedes to lock down the save
Justin Smoak finally cracked the 20 HR plateau for the 1st time in his career during the 2013 year. He 3 Slashed for .238/.334/.746 in the entire year, and is finally showing some promise towards the future. Smoak was the main piece back in a 2010 trade to the Texas Rangers in exchange for the soon to be Free Agent Cliff Lee. The tall First Baseman will not take it to the next level on this young team in 2014. Smoak is eligible for Arbitration this offseason.
The Mariners didn’t really have an unforgettable, signature win during the 2013 season, but a couple wins do stand out as special.
First of all, their 12-5 win at Houston in the midst of their longest winning streak of the season on July 21st was pretty amazing.
Felix Hernandez pitched six sterling shutout innings and Nick Franklin had two home runs in the win. Another fantastic game was just the fifth game of the season, when Seattle defeated the White Sox 8-7 in 10 innings at U.S. Cellular Field.
A clutch double from Kendrys Morales pushed the M’s ahead in the tenth inning and Tom Wilhelmsen worked through a sticky situation in the bottom of the inning to give the M’s the win.
These were just two particularly memorable games of the 2013 Mariners season.
Hopefully, next year will provide much more games to talk about.
Three players stood out from the lowly 2013 squad as players who had breakout campaigns.
23-year-old Brad Miller has proven that he can handle the duty of being in the Mariners middle infield for years to come. In 302 plate appearances in his rookie season, Miller has hit .262/.316/.753with 8 HR.
This is even more impressive considering the terrible players that he’s had to hit with in the team’s offensive lineup.
Danny Farquhar went from an afterthought during Spring Training to the Mariners lockdown closer in a little more than half of the season. In 55.2 innings pitched, Farquhar has 16 saves and a 1.86 FIP.
The other pitcher who has emerged as a star in Seattle is the 24-year-old lefty James Paxton. In just four starts since being called up from Triple-A Tacoma, Paxton has a 3.00 K/BB and a 1.50 ERA.
After their outstanding performances in the 2013 season, it appears Miller, Farquhar and Paxton will all play major roles in the future of the franchise.
From July 12th to July 23rd, the team won eight consecutive games in what is easy to proclaim the most enjoyable stretch of the 2013 season for Mariners fans.
Even though they were still quite a ways out of contention at this time, the Mariners were finally playing at the level that Jack Zduriencik expected at the start of the season.
HIsashi Iwakuma is one of the top pitchers in the American League right now. While he may not win the AL Cy Young, he has to be in the conversation. The sophomore had a 14 – 6 record, a 1.006 WHIP (2nd in AL) and a 2.66 ERA (3rd in the AL).
2013 was a terrible season to be cheering for the Mariners, but for a short amount of time, the club reminded their fans what it would be like if there was a winning baseball team in Seattle.
With a new manager and plenty of new faces taking the field for the Seattle Mariners in 2014, things are sure to be different. Hopefully, the organization can find some way to turn around their culture of losing and put together at least a .500 season.
Sure, that hasn’t happened for Seattle since 2009, but with Paxton, Iwakuma, and Hernandez leading the rotation along with Kyle Seager and Brad Miller shoring up the infield, it should be an achievable goal.
The Mariners are due for an exciting season and 2014 would be as good a year as any to start a triumphant dynasty at Safeco Field.
Even though it feels like a question we’ve been asking prior to every season for the last five years, with Felix Hernandez coming back, how bad could 2014 really be?
*** The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com and their partners***
A big thank-you goes out to our ‘Marlins and Mariners Correspondent’ Sam Evans for preparing today’s featured article. Sam is a high school student from the Seattle area.
He is a longtime Mariners fan, and has been an off-and-on season ticket holder for the last five years.
Sam enjoys interacting with readers and digging beneath the surface to find the truth in baseball. Sam was our 2nd Intern who has graduated to the position of Baseball Writer. For all of Sam’s archived articles- click here.
You can follow Sam on Twitter: Sam Also writes for the Marlins website Fish Stripes. Follow @RJA206
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