Timing is a bit challenging. May in my life featured a move, travel, illness, some struggles in my day job, and not nearly enough victories by the Seattle Mariners for my taste. I’d thought a piece on the remaining strength of schedule would be pertinent for a week or two, given Seattle’s June features exactly one series that I’d consider highly favorable, and it was the three-game set in Anaheim they just dropped two of three in. Yes, Baltimore has been awful. No, I did not think they’d be so all season and their recent 10-5 stretch is both aggravating and a reminder what any team is capable of. After Arizona concludes today, they return for their only complete multi-series set at home, hosting the Cleveland Guardians and Boston Red Sox. That’s the easiest part.
The next time Seattle plays a sub-.500 team after today, against a D-Backs team that’s clearly potent, will be at the end of a nine-game road trip June 27-29 in Texas, following three with the offensive juggernaut Cubs and four at the resurgent Twins. This is a brutal month that Seattle has started awfully, but it really is distinctly tough. July has tough runs, with the Yankees, Tigers, and Astros in a remarkable playoff-replicating gauntlet of each AL division leader. It also features a combined 11 games with the Pirates, Angels, Athletics, and Rangers. August has nine with those A’s, Rangers, and White Sox. September affords the M’s 10 with Anaheim, oddly awful Atlanta, and the Rockies, plus the conclusion of the season against a sure-to-be-clinched Dodgers club. It will get easier, even if just incrementally.
Right now, however, by simple win-loss, Seattle’s remaining strength of schedule is middle of the pack. A .498 opposing winning percentage puts the M’s 18th strongest looking forward, functionally equivalent to most clubs in a year where parity reigns in the American League for the most part, and the top-heavier National League looks to still have at least 10 teams in the mix for playoff berths.
The additional issue is that not all schedules are entirely equal, and certainly not what remains of them. The Houston Astros have the weakest remaining schedule, by quite some margin, at just a .466 winning percentage, ahead of the .484 the L.A. Dodgers face the rest of the way in 29th. Most of that comes down to three factors – they play Colorado six more times and Sacramento 11, with seven still to go against Baltimore to boot. Nobody in the AL has more than three games with the record-settingly awful Rox remaining. As the White Sox have proven, of course, by going 3-1 so far against Houston with two more to go, you still have to play the games. You’d prefer to be on the inverse side of things, however.
Because even the most lopsided pitching matchups in MLB typically still are little better than a 60-40 bet, this really isn’t predictively defining of Seattle’s season the rest of the way. The way they’re playing right now, they could lose to anybody. By the same token, they’ve hit .265/.311/.385 in June with a 102 wRC+ and they’ve scored 3.11 runs per game, while allowing a .247/.325/.444 and a 115 wRC+ that’s led to 5.11 runs per game. That’s not great, but it’s not exactly in whack either. A healthy Logan Gilbert is a different thing to contend with than a gimpy Bryce Miller or a green Logan Evans, to boot. Hunker down for June, but don’t mistake what’s happened before for inevitability about what will happen next.
