Well, I’m sitting here at an “Evil Empire” coffee shop in New York, listening to people make big deals, about their so-called important jobs, and talking loudly into Bluetooth headphones so everybody in three-block radius can understand their overall importance to the national economy. Sure buddy you may be moving big on the market, but do you get to try and figure out why Richie Sexson can’t hit in Safeco Field, or why the Mariners can’t hit a guy named Darrell Rasner. Oh well, you gotta love New York sometimes.

I should have found a bar to write in. But then again, thinking about this Mariners team sometimes drives me to drink. I will say this though there is no shortage of beautiful women in Manhattan and it seems another one walks by every second. So there are positives.

And that’s what I’m trying to do with the Mariners is find some positives, I’m an optimistic person by nature, but this road trip didn’t make it easy for me. I guess the biggest positive for me heading into this series with the Rangers is this – The Mariners have to play better, because right now they can’t play much worse.

Or can they?

It’s tough imagine the Mariners can hit as weakly, field as poorly or receive more inconsistent pitching than they did this past road trip.

Manager John McLaren seems to think that a return to Safeco and a little home cooking is what the M’s need. But as Jose Vidro pointed out, the Mariners lost their last two series at home as well.

Before I get to the road trip grades, a few programming notes. I won’t be covering tonight or Wednesday night’s games. But I may be blogging some stuff though. Tonight I’ll be in the air for most of the game so no “game thoughts.” Don Ruiz will handle the game coverage. Not sure who is doing Wednesday’s game.

Alright here we go …

Hitting: F-
I can think of only a few good at-bats from the last six days. ,I don’t care if Adrian Beltre hit two home runs on the trip, one of them a game-winner, or that Ichiro had hits in almost every game. The team as a whole was awful, they scored more than three runs in the first game, and five of them didn’t come till the last inning of that game. The next five games they never scored more than three runs.

Want a disgusting stat? Ichiro stole six bases against the Yankees. Do you know how many runs he scored in the series? One. One damn run. That’s with the 2-3-4-5 hitters having changes to hit him in. Overall against New York, the Mariners got 19 hits in 102 plate appearances and with four walks (.194 team batting average) and scored four runs total. Perhaps because of the 19 hits, one was a double, one was a Beltre home run and that was it for extra base hits.

And with the exception of Chien-Mien Wang, it wasn’t like they were facing Cy Young and Roger Clemens. We’re talking an aging Mike Mussina, who’s fastball now runs up there at 85 miles per hour and some guy named Darrell Rasner.

Pitching: C-
Carlos Silva’s first start in Cleveland, Miguel Batista’s start and Erik Bedard’s start were all solid outings, and you know how many of those the Mariners won? One. One damn win. JJ’s meltdown cost Batista, while the Mariners’ defense cost Bedard two unearned runs and led to another. That and the Mariners never scored more than three runs in either of them.

Silva and Felix struggled in New York and Jarrod Washburn labored in Cleveland. One thing I think happens with pitchers, though they’ll never admit it, they take the mound knowing they’ll probably only two runs of support and it makes them get too fine. They try and get strikeouts, instead of pitching to contact. And when that happens, they run up their pitch count, fall behind in counts and generally get hit harder than they normally would.

The bullpen was ok on the trip, Arthur Rhodes still continues to progress and Brandon Morrow is getting better. The big question is JJ’s command issues and if they’ve been righted by this new throwing routine. When, and if, the Mariners ever get another save situation we’ll find out.

Defense: D
I really wanted to give an F simply for the errors that Betancourt and Lopez committed in Bedard’s start. They were simple plays and it just demonstrates the lack of focus that plagues them and doesn’t allow them to take the next step. Ask yourself this? Does Derek Jeter at Betancourt’s age, make that bad play on the backhand? No because Jeter busts his ass and gets in front and makes the play in front of him. Does Dan Uggla, Chase Utley or Dustin Pedroia take their eyes off of a throw down on a stolen base like Lopez. Not hardly. It was a sure out. And when you aren’t scoring runs, the last thing you can do is give free outs to the opponent.

But you know, the Mariners gold glove third baseman had two this series, including a horrible one against Cleveland on a routine double play throw. He has six errors this season. I know he’s got a hurt wrist and thumb on his glove hand, but a couple ghastly ones have been on throwing errors. Beltre and Joe Crede lead all third basemen in errors.

Management: B
Look I’m glad they realized the Wilkerson experiment was a glaring failure. And bringing up Balentien and Clement was the right thing. I still don’t know why they got rid of Norton and now he's headed to Atlanta. He’s a better bat off the bench than anybody they have. Miguel Cairo is a nice guy that can’t hit - and he’s getting paid 850,000 for getting in one game a week. That’s not quite as bad as eating the 3 million on Wilkerson’s salary, but hey, the Nintendo WII is selling well.

One thing I didn’t like is all the talk about Clement and Balentien jumpstarting the offense, which I admit we helped perpetuate. These two kids have a combined 40 games of major league experience. There’s bound to be some failure, to go with any success. But the Mariners need to stick by them. They called them up they have to let them get some serious at-bats and allow them to learn a little.

I think John McLaren’s tirade at his team was good and deserved. They were playing horribly and if nobody in that clubhouse is going to raise their voice, say something and hold people accountable then McLaren needed to. I could write 10,000 words on this, but I won’t (not yet anyway).

Overall: F
It’s now May, and the Mariners are tied with the Texas Rangers with the worst record in the American League 13-18. All that manure of “it’s only the first month” and “it’s a long season” needs to stop. Seattle is 6 ½ out and you just don’t make that up in two weeks because the Angels are not going to fall apart like the New York Mets did last year. The Mariners need to not only start winning games, but playing a decent brand of baseball that leads to wins in games they shouldn’t. Last year’s team had a way of pulling out wins they probably shouldn’t have, but that’s because they played better baseball than this year’s squad is right now. The time is now. They can’t afford to wait around any longer. As McLaren said: “It’s time to go, so dammit let’s go.”