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Seattle. Seattle Mariners star Ichiro Suzuki is dumbfounded, even depressed at the turn of fortunes his team has taken.

Ken Griffey Jr. is gone, having suddenly driven home to retirement in Florida. Cliff Lee is gone, too, traded to division-rival Texas instead of teaming with fellow ace pitcher Felix Hernandez to beat the Rangers and everyone else in the American League West.

Suzuki’s Mariners have gone from a popular pick for the postseason and winners of baseball’s offseason to losers during the real season. Again.

Seattle begins the second half of the season Thursday at the Los Angeles Angels sitting 18 games under .500, and 15 games behind the Rangers.

They are last in the division they expected to win. The team built on pitching and defense has failed so miserably on offense that nothing else has mattered much, or will matter much for the final months of the season.

“To be honest with you, I can’t even explain in words. It’s very, very tough, hard and depressing,” Suzuki told a group of about 10 reporters Monday in Anaheim, California, ahead of his 10th consecutive All-Star game on Tuesday.

Seattle’s 3.39 runs per game and .238 batting average are its second-lowest marks at the break in team history. The Mariners’ 57 home runs in 88 games is their third-fewest at any All-Star break. Seattle’s last playoff team of 2001 had 102 homers by now.

“The media – everyone – expected a lot from us in spring training, and it didn’t work out that way,” the team’s cornerstone said through his interpreter. “You can’t explain it in words. That’s how tough it is, mentally.”

Suzuki, 36, who this season became the sixth major league player since 1901 to steal 20 bases in each of his first 10 seasons, is not alone wallowing in the grim reality of 35-53.

“We’re all disappointed,” said manager Don Wakamatsu, who has gone from refreshing in his rookie season to ripped by fans in his second. “We came in with high expectations.”

General manager Jack Zduriencik has admitted those may have been too high.

“Maybe we are a little bit ahead of schedule,” Zduriencik said of the heightened expectations. “And maybe we are paying a price for being a little bit ahead of schedule. You still have to keep in mind [the] long range.”

That’s what he did last week when he traded Lee for heralded hitting prospect Justin Smoak and some Double-A players.

“In this process we are trying to build a World Series championship-caliber club here,” Zduriencik said.

Yet that seems light years away right now. So what’s left in this season?

The 23-year-old Smoak is going to play almost every day at first base. That means Russell Branyan, acquired from Cleveland on June 26 to give Seattle at least one consistent home-run threat, will play more at designated hitter.

That leaves Milton Bradley, with a sore knee and a contract that still has another year and about $10 million left on it, trying to find playing time in left field with young Michael Saunders.

The rotation has a 3.55 ERA, the best at the All-Star break in team history. But without Lee it has holes that Triple-A call-up David Pauley is now helping to fill.

Erik Bedard, the former ace of the Baltimore Orioles, was scheduled to make his season debut this month following shoulder surgery last August. Then his shoulder began bothering him again. He remains out indefinitely.

The bullpen that was a strength last season is now a liability, epitomized by 2009 star closer David Aardsma’s 0-6 record with a 5.40 ERA and four blown saves in 20 chances — as many blown saves as he had all last season.

And the Mariners are closer to their second 100-loss season in three years than any postseason pipe dream.

“I didn’t expect this to happen, but ... it’s reality,” Suzuki said. “We have to deal with it.


Associated Press