"All that said, if you're holding judgment on Marc-O until the end of the season...."

Jeff you crack me up.  The reason I've been hanging with ya online for these 21+ years now?  The very best part of your shtick is the part about calling things out while they are happening.  It's not about waiting until the votes are cast after the career is over.  I remember having many arguments with folks back in the mid 90s who told me to wait 10 years and get back to them about the Big Unit.  I declared the Unit a HOF pitcher at the beginning of 1995.  Took a lot of flak for it.  "you gotta wait until he proves it over time".  I said "says who?"  

My father told me after watching A-Rod's first week in Tacoma that he was the best player he had ever seen.  And that's coming from a Willie Mays fan.

I've said this many times.......if you don't realize you are watching HOF talent when you are watching it, you are missing out.

Does that mean I think Marco is that?  Of course not.  But the same mentality applies.  Let's recognize what we are seeing at the time we are seeing it.  It's a heckuva lot more fun that way.

Most people would rather safely be proven right than risking being proven wrong. I can understand that, because I'm closer to the former than the latter. I prefer to avoid rashness. The few times I would get joy from being proved right doesn't necessarily make up for the disappointment in frequent times I am proved wrong. Here's looking at you, Fab Four of the M's from some years ago (Smoak, Ackley, Montero, and somebody else I'm forgetting). That was the young core. We were all convinced. History puked on our exhuberance.

But I also totally get the opposite mentality. Might as well have a good time while you're following baseball. These are just two different mindsets. One ain't right and the other wrong, there's room for people to be different.

That blown 2-2 call was frighteningly similar to the one from April where the pitch after the blown call was blasted into the bricks. I expected Marco to come apart. I know I would have - that was a textbook strike, not even close to the bottom on the zone. Instead, he walks the guy then calmly picks the runner off 2nd to end the inning. Great composure.

Over at DOV, there was a blistering exchange that essentially boiled down to "if we play .500 ball against bad teams the next two weeks, we're lucky."

Ehem.

Might I suggest you check yourselves into Shiclshadel rehab to recover from negative Mariner stress addiction?

Our rotation is clearly not as good as it looks right now. But if you are saying "the rotation is getting lucky and bailing out a bad line-up with only five hitters" then you are suffering from confirmation bias. The rotation is hot, several hitters are slumping...but both slumps and streaks end. Cruz is still hitting the ball hard. Seager is still hitting the ball hard. Haniger is still hitting the ball hard. Healy is still hitting the ball hard. Zunino is still hitting the ball hard when he manages to make contact. This is still the same line-up (minus Cano) that we had two weeks ago.

The pitching will almost certainly get worse. The hitting will almost certainly get better. I see no reason to imagine the team is lucky if it holds serve against Texas, Tampa and other feebs prior to the thirteen game meat-grinder we face in mid June.

Haniger seems to have packed away his plate discipline and sent it to Lower Slobbovia. But of course, he'll get it back. I personally think the strain on the position players still in the lineup is proving detrimental to some. That'll change over time and when some of these guys come back.

Nearly three decades ago, in his Baseball Abstract, Bill James essentially argued that winning one run games was (over the course of a season) a factor of luck.  I don't know if he's changed that idea in terms of the new "Bullpen Paradigm," but I haven't seen it retracted.

I looked back on the last five World Series winners and they were something like 92-85, combined, in one-run games. 

The M's are 16-8.  Now it might be that we continue that hot-fortunate pace, but it might not.  I mention this not to try to jinx the M's, but to offer a reminder that if we lose three or four consectutive one-run games it doesn't change the nature of the team, but represents a simple norming of outcome.

Worth watching about Nelson Cruz:  He's OPS-ing .725 and +-ing 100, not Nellie-type numbers at all.  Over the past 28 days it is .164-.307-.247 and .138-.219-.241 over the last 14.  I'm pretty willing to bet he's never had a (much) worse slump.  Interested, I took a deeper look. He's hitting LHP decently this season (.822, career .924) in  45 PA's.  But his .689 vR is way off the Boomstick norm (.833).  Looking at his vR specifically, I find that his K/PA is 21.1%.  That's even better than the 22.1, 24.3, 26.5 % he's run vR going back 4 seasons.  He K's less vs. RHP than he used to.  But this season both his BB/PA nd vR Slg% are way down.  The first is at 3.3%  this season, after three seasons of 7.4, 8.4 & 7.8.  His vR Slg% has fallen to .420, after .586, .513, .524.

I know it is only 123 PA, a small sample, but it is worth watching if RHPs challenge Nelson more and he hurts them less.  He's certainly been hobbled, that is true, but age eventually catches up to all of us.  Is this his season?

Told my friends all the time during Juniors era, if you don't go to the park and watch this kid, you're missing the best player of our lifetime to wear M's NW teal.  And when he's gone, it's over.  I have that "best player we'll ever see" feeling with Trout; and i'm happy to have watched him in-person.  Mostly, we don't know what the future holds with these guys, but with a few one can sense greatness.  Haniger comes to mind currently with Zeus edging forward too.  But they still have years of great performances to get there.