We're planning to have Geoff Baker Live! at 6 p.m. Pacific time.

Well, I think we can safely say the entire city is freaking out about the Mariners right now. I'll get another chance to talk about them this morning in my Talkin' Baseball segment on KJR AM 950's Mitch in the Morning show, coming up around 8:30 a.m.

Click right here to go to the show page.

Got some warmup time in last night for that. When I headed on over to Serafina for dinner, the bartender and wait staff were all curious about what was going on with this team's offense. It was also apparently the common theme of the customers who'd headed there to drown their sorrows after taking in the game. And who could blame them? Not everyday you go to a home opener and see the star attraction held to just two hits.

Other than Franklin Gutierrez, no one on this team is hitting. The meat of the order is more like a vegetarian platter.

So, that's reason for concern. But also a reason to hope that things are about to get better. As I told the restaurant folk last night, this offense cannot stay this bad forever. Here's why.

Let's take a look at production so far, measured in terms of on-base-plus-slugging percentage. We'll put the current OPS first, then a guy's career average (prior to this season) in brackets.

Jose Lopez .400 (.715)
Ichiro .595 (.812)
Franklin Gutierrez .971 (.736)
Chone Figgins .535 (.751)
Casey Kotchman .676 (.743)
Jack Wilson .574 (.684)
Milton Bradley .432 (.819)
Ken Griffey Jr. .549 (.912)
Rob Johnson .902 (.589)

We'll leave the bench guys out of this, since they've barely had any chance to play and their numbers don't reflect much of anything. Adam Moore has seen some playing time, one more game than Opening Day catcher Rob Johnson, and is struggling with an OPS of .077. So, clearly, not the best start. But expect Johnson to play more as the team gains confidence in his hips being able to handle the physical grind of back-to-back action.

But it's tough for any offense to succeed with seven out of nine regulars hitting well below career norms. Actually, eight out of nine when you consider Johnson isn't "hitting" all that well despite his high OPS. I mean, you start to worry about guys other than slap-hitting middle infielders when their OPS dips below .700. The Mariners have five guys below .600 at the moment.

So, unless you believe Ichiro and Figgins will continue to hit more than .200 points below OPS norms, or Bradley stay at nearly 400 points below, then automatically, there will be some improvement. Things can't possibly stay this bad.

Still, no reason to pop any corks just yet.

What we don't know is how much better this offense will be. The hitting numbers are so bad right now that even a jump of several hundred points in OPS won't automatically make this a team capable of scoring 4.5 runs per game.

Right now, the M's are scoring fewer than three runs per game. And that's misleading, since about a third of the runs have come as a direct result of errors and wild pitches. So, let's say the M's are really a 2.5 runs per game team as of present-day, and jump all the way up to, what, about four runs per contest?

That still won't help all that much. This is the AL and you need to count on more than that to thrive.

So, you can look at the process. I look at Lopez and still see a guy swinging wildly at pitches that come his way. In fairness, Lopez made a productive out yesterday, working the count and grounding out to the right side to move Gutierrez over to third with one down. But he needs to do that more often. Is he going to be more than the typical .300 on-base guy he's been his whole career? So far, I'm not seeing it yet.

Is Griffey going to recover his stroke and be the middle of the order hitter the M's envision? So far, I'm not seeing it. He looks a lot like he did for most of last year. I could be wrong, but I've yet to see anything to point me in a different direction.

With Ichiro, I've learned to pencil him in for 200 hits. But will they be like the hits he got last year in posting a .386 on-base percentage and .465 slugging mark? Or, more like 2008, when he was at a .361 OBP and a .386 slugging mark?

That could make a considerable difference on a team already lacking in slugging across the board and needing a huge on-base year at the top of the order. A .361 OBP is still very good. But the M's need better than very good if they're going to manufacture runs.

Figgins is coming off a career year in which he posted a .395 on-base number. He'll obviously do better than he's done so far. But again, how much better?

Kotchman will also do better. But will he post an OPS greater than .800, as most first basemen need to do -- especially on teams that don't have slugging at non-traditional power positions? He hasn't done it since 2007 and he hasn't yet.

These are all questions that fans should be legitimately concerned about. They should have been concerned back in spring training.

They should definitely be asking those questions now.

Not because the Mariners will continue to be this bad. But because this team needed some above-average performances by a handful of guys in order to succeed on offense this season. And the team stumbling across the board isn't going to instill confidence in people waiting to see whether players can be above average in regard to their recent performances.

Gutierrez and Johnson would be nice, if they can keep it up. But this team needs more to go with that. And in Johnson's case, he's still a sub-.200 hitter whose OPS has been inflated by some walks and one home run out of two hits.

So, yes, it's still early. But yes, the worries are also valid. We know the M's will get better. We just don't know how much better and whether it will be enough.