Mariners stuck in the middle ... again

The Mariners are not all that far behind where they normally sit this time of year.

According to the most important measurement, they’re actually ahead of where they were this time last year.

This points to the possibilities that still exist in this season that seems to be skidding sideways.

It’s also a potential problem: When you’ve made the playoffs twice in the previous 24 seasons, you can’t afford to punt on this situation.

However, the way this team has played doesn’t make you want to invest MORE into it, either. You don’t want to throw good money after bad.

We’ll get to the Mariners in just a second.

The Seahawks opened training camp last week. They’re putting on pads for the first time on Thursday, and the player I’m most curious about is barely meriting a mention these days.

Quarterback Jalen Milroe.

This is, in one respect, kind of silly. It also sounds very much like one of those Hot Takes I tend to complain about.

Sam Darnold was the starting quarterback of a Super Bowl-winning team. His team’s record is 28-6 in regular-season games he has started over the previous two seasons. His teammates love him as Ernest Jones demonstrated with a blunt, profane dismissal of anyone who would criticize Darnold after a turnover-fueled loss in Los Angeles last season.

However, I also recall that prior to Rashid Shaheed’s punt-return TD in the fourth quarter of that Week 16 victory over the Rams, plenty of people were fairly convinced that Seattle would need a new quarterback to get over the hump.

That conclusion was … perhaps a bit premature.

However, Darnold did commit the most turnovers of any player in the NFL last season.

And while he had some truly outstanding performances such as the NFC Championship Game, there were a couple of stinkers in there. He did not play particularly well in the Super Bowl.

In a statistician’s terms, there’s a high degree of variability.

There were three reasons that Seattle wasn’t able to not only survive Darnold’s turnover tendency, but to thrive.

Perhaps the Seahawks will do all that again.

Maybe Darnold will raise his baseline performance and stop suffering the occasional meltdown performance.

Or perhaps at some point this upcoming season, the Seahawks will find themselves wondering if there might be a better long-term option.

I have no expectations of Milroe, a third-round pick last year.

Only curiosity.

After spending his rookie season as the No. 3 quarterback on the depth chart, is Milroe going to compete with Drew Lock for the backup job?

As Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times pointed out, Lock has been working with the No. 2 offense, Milroe with the No. 3s. Condotta also highlighted Milroe’s performance in Tuesday’s practice.

The Seahawks carried three quarterbacks last season, which has become unusual in today’s NFL. Would they do it again?

As a third-round pick, the Seahawks clearly saw potential in Milroe. At the same time, that’s not such a big investment that he’s destined to get a chance under center, either.

The Mariners struggled at the plate on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Again.

They were beaten 4-2 by the Dodgers, continuing a turbulent season in which they are currently underwater at 53-56, but still alive in part because no one in the division has been good.

In search of perspective, I went and looked up the team’s record at this point of the previous five seasons.

First of all, that level of consistency is absolutely WILD.

In a sport where player performance fluctuates dramatically one year to the next, the Mariners have been remarkably stable.

This also maddening!

Because they’re not necessarily getting better. They’re like the team that is playing to get the game into the fourth quarter and then letting the chips fall where they may.

And while Seattle is four games off their usual pace, they might be in even better position overall.

Here were the standings on July 29 compared to the previous five seasons: