Mariners teetering, but they have time

Two lousy weeks.

That's all it has taken to suck the life out of what had been the most invigorating Mariners season in four years.

Less than two weeks, to be completely accurate. It has been a 12-day demise, featuring 11 days of mostly lousy baseball and one hope-inducing day of Felix Hernandez in the Bronx. But based on the two ugly losses to the Yankees that followed, that 7-1 victory looks more like an aberration than a reawakening.

What an amazing transformation. The Mariners were the darlings of baseball back on Aug. 25. Twenty games over .500. Three games ahead in the wild-card race, and breathing down the neck of the Angels in the division race. Loose, confident and in full control. Or so it seemed.

It was a great story: Downtrodden team rises up, loses manager but overcomes the turmoil in rousing fashion. People from outside the Northwest were starting to notice. It seemed impossible to imagine a future for the Mariners that didn't include a meaningful September — if not October.

But then it began to unravel. Two dispiriting losses to a weak Texas team when a win would have pulled them into a tie for first. A disastrous three-game capitulation to the Angels in Seattle. A heart-wrenching loss to Cleveland. Another three-game disaster in Toronto. That lonely Labor Day victory over the Yankees that was optimistically viewed as the end of the slide — followed by the renewal of the slide.

And now, finally, a respite in Detroit for the Mariners, who can point to their arduous schedule as one ingredient in a foul stew of factors, mostly self-induced, that have halted their path to glory.

Some of those losses will be fretted over for years, with talking points that will instantly reawaken the pain for fans: the Adrian Beltre throwing errors and Ho-Ram gopher ball in Texas; the 5-0 first-inning lead over the Angels that was frittered away; the bases-loaded walk by the newly departed, but unlamented Rick White in Cleveland; the Raul Ibanez no-way double play in Toronto; the ill-fated wave of doom by Carlos Garcia in New York.

What has been as startling as the suddenness of the Mariners' demise — they fell 7 ½ behind the Angels in the American League West with Wednesday's 10-2 loss, and three behind the Yankees in the wild card — has been the enmity unleashed by fans.

Taken in isolation, the season would seem to represent a significant step forward from the 99, 93 and 84 losses of 2004-06. What Mariners fan, player or executive would have turned down, if offered in March, a 74-64 record on Sept. 7? The prospect of being just three games out of the playoffs heading into the final stretch drive would surely have brought euphoria.

But, of course, their current predicament is not taken in isolation. It is part of a continuum that includes controversial roster decisions in the offseason, managerial decisions that beg to be second-guessed, trades that weren't made, ineffective pitching additions that were made (John Parrish and White, the latter destined to be the Allen Watson of a new generation; Watson lasted three games for Seattle in 1999, three fewer than White but long enough to give up five homers in three innings).

It's almost as if that unexpected taste of success, which caused even the most cynical nonbelievers to give in at some point and concede that these Mariners were for real, and in it for the long haul, has heightened what can only be viewed as a sense of betrayal.

The result appears to be a universal feeling of certainty that the season is irretrievably ruined that, while a natural reaction to the recent horror, feels a trifle premature.

One thing I've learned over two decades of covering baseball is the danger of making definitive statements about the fate of a team when there are still enough games for the outcome to change — 24, in the Mariners' case.

As dire as it looks, the M's are three games out of the playoffs. I don't think there's a team in baseball that would consider itself dead at three games out with three-plus weeks to play. The Twins last year were five behind Detroit on Sept. 7 — and won the division.

Yes, the Mariners' situation has the feel of a hopeless cause. But in baseball, moods can change dramatically with a couple of wins. Hope is the thing with feathers — that, and a couple of strong eight-inning stints by the starters.

There will be plenty of time for incrimination and finger-pointing when the year is over. The Mariners have done much to lament, plenty to second-guess. If this collapse continues, I daresay heads will roll.

But before we beat the moribund horse senseless, let's at least see if, by some off chance, it has another sprint left in it.

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com