The Seattle Mariners sent Felix Hernandez to the mound Monday night against the Houston Astros in an effort to avoid their 7th straight loss. Unfortunately the wheels fell off for the Mariners in the 6th inning after an error at third base led to four unearned runs for the visiting Astros, who eventually walked away with a 7-2 victory.

The Mariners began their annual rendezvous with mediocrity under new manager, Lloyd McClendon, just 19 games ago with an opening sweep, on the road, against the Los Angeles Angels. Reality has since struck, with the team losing 12 of its last 16 games.

Another bad April in the Pacific Northwest is nothing unusual for baseball fans out here but it does bring to mind a line from the movie, Batman. Instead of “this town needs a(n cleanse)”, as the Joker said, Seattle might better be described as a team that needs a cup adjustment… because things certainly aren’t right with the nuts down there at the corner of Edgar & Dave.

For a franchise who fooled itself into thinking the $240 million off-season acquisition of Robinson Cano was the answer to the empty seats up at Safeco, the first 20 games of 2014 is forcing the question over the empty suits who run the team down at the Seattle front office.

To be fair, the pitching staff has been gutted by injuries and is unlikely to return to full strength until mid-May (sports injury alert). Healthy pitching, however, isn’t going to solve the Mariners consistent misfortunes and fill the stands, but manufacturing runs probably will. And that is where General Manager, Jack Zduriencik has completely lost the plot.

Zduriencik’s love of power hitting and lack of understanding of modern-day statistical analysis, or Sabermetrics, was widely reported in a Seattle Times expose last December, wherein outgoing manager, Eric Wedge, discussed dysfunction throughout the organization. Wedge’s comments ignited conversation in coffee shops around the city, but the team’s failure to adequately rebut the charges has led the public to form their own conclusions on the subject.

With nearly 12% of the season already in the books though, the words of the former skipper leave to linger the question of whether Seattle’s front office has any nuts at all.

For the Mariners to have any realistic hope of reaching the post season, they will have to figure out how to score at least 730 runs this year, or 4.5 runs per game. Over the course of the first 19 games, however, they’ve only pushed 69 runs across the plate, or 3.63 runs per game.

Remove the opening sweep against the Angels from the equation, and per game run production falls to 2.69. To add further frustration to this simple statistic, Seattle’s won-loss record would be 13-6 if they could have just scored 4 runs per game in the early part of the season.

If Jack Zduriencik loves power hitters so much, yet shares an equal craving for the type of under-valued anomalies that can only be found through solid Sabermetrics, the nuts down there at the Front Office need to ask why he has so little of either in the clubhouse.

While losing seasons continue to pile on top of each other, Seattle’s General Manager and the rest of the Front Office carry on like standard nuts who are completely disassociated with the logical brain activity that takes place on the field.

As any long-time baseball player would know, if the bits & pieces aren’t fitting together properly, it’s perfectly fine to give yourself a cup adjustment in front of the fans and the folks watching at home.

In the case of the Seattle Mariners. a proper adjustment, however would begin by wondering if management has any nuts at all.

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Thanks for reading! “Testiclees” is a freelance writer, based in Seattle, who lives out his real-life under the fictitious name of Scott Gentry. Readers can view his blog at testeeawards.wordpress.com, interact with him @testeeawards on Twitter, email at [email protected] or “like” on Facebook. Give us a follow while you’re at it – @LastWordOnSport, and “Like” our Facebook page!

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