I’m a Seattle Mariners fan. That was fun to say in the early 00s and even in the mid-to-late 90s. For the first nine years of my life, I lived in Seattle and saw the rise and the excitement that the Mariners produced during their heyday. I went to baseball games every season, had the Mariners gear, watched almost every game on TV, and knew every player on the team.

However, for the last 12 years, saying that I was a Mariners fan did not make me proud. I felt like I was backing a team who had made numerous poor decisions in terms of letting fan favorites and good players go as well as trading young talent for mediocre players. I was forced into watching Adam Jones and Shin Soo Choo become fantastic players and take their teams to another level, while I was stuck watching Erik Bedard not live up to his advertised hype.

You would think the management would get a clue eventually. After almost going a decade with trying to bandage up the holes in the lineup and trying to find the cheap veteran that might have one solid year left in him, I would think management would decide to take a deep breath, deal with a couple of losing seasons and allow the young talent that Seattle has to mature.

To be honest, I think Seattle fans would have been completely fine with a couple of losing seasons if it meant that young talent (especially hitters) could mature and that the cycle would come back around again. I think management, as a whole, slightly panicked and wanted to give the fanbase a team to cheer for right away. Grabbing players like Adrian Beltre, Richie Sexson (who was up in age), Randy Winn, and *shudder* Jeff Cirillo was supposed to cover up the holes. In fact, it only increased the pain as Seattle refused to just let the rebuild happen.

I still stand by my longtime claim that getting Cirillo started this whole mess for Seattle. It was the first of many instances where Seattle would get one good year out of a cheap, aging veteran and then watch them leave. Cirillo would have one “decent” season with Seattle in 2002 as he had 121 hits, but batted just .249 and only have 54 RBIs. What happened next season? Cirillo only played 87 games and registered 53 hits and batted just .205. I may be singling him out (mainly because that move still irritates me), but it started a trend that was so frustrating to watch over the 00s.

The Mariners had just come off an insane run from 2000 to 2003 where they had won over 90 games and had that ridiculous and, ultimately, disappointing 116 win season in 2001. I think the fanbase would have been a lot more understanding in terms of having losing seasons if it felt like there was hope on the horizon instead of watching young talent become either a star or good role players elsewhere that Seattle could have used.

Well, flash forward to 2014, the first year in a long time where I am starting to care about Mariner baseball. Now, at the time of this blog post, the Mariners have just swept the Atlanta Braves in a two-game series and are three games over .500 and are fighting the Angels in the wild-card. They are also currently sporting a nice five-game winning streak.

Management finally got the guts to go after a marquee free agent in Robinson Cano. It was going to take a ton of money to get him to Seattle, but the Mariners had the money after recently signing a new TV deal that is giving them an absolute insane amount of money. However, there were still some pessimistic attitudes even during the run for Cano. The Mariners had tried the season before to pry Justin Upton from the Diamondbacks, only to be stopped by Seattle being one of the teams that Upton did not want to be traded to. Ouch.

We all know the story. Seattle ultimately was able to get Cano by signing him to a 10-year $240 million contract. There are still times now where I cannot believe Seattle had managed to move someone from New York to Seattle. Money does a lot of things.

He has exploded in his first year as a Mariner and has really changed the perception of the offense. At the time of this post, Cano is actually tearing the cover off of the ball. He is batting .330 with 71 hits and 31 RBIs in the beginning of June. His power numbers have taken a little bit of dip as he has only had two bombs this season, but that was to be expected. In Yankee Stadium, the right field wall was closer in and easier to hit the ball over. Safeco Field generally makes your power numbers go down. However, is anyone complaining?

Cano isn’t the only one helping out Seattle. Kyle Seager has finally found his offense as he has bumped his average up to .265 and has 53 hits, 9 HRs and 36 RBIs.

Probably the most underrated change was the leadoff hitter. After spending the beginning of the season switching between Abraham Almonte and Michael Saunders, Seattle called up James Jones. He is your typical, central-casting leadoff hitter. He is a speedster, plays great defense in center field, which the Mariners haven’t had, in my opinion, since Mike Cameron and he gets on base frequently. In only 30 games played, he has 28 hits and is batting .283. He currently has six stolen bases and looks to be the leadoff hitter going forward at only 25 years of age. Finally, the Mariners not trading away talents like this.

The pitching has been absolutely stellar, well at least in three out of the five. Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma are a lethal one-two punch. There are moments where I feel like Iwakuma is Seattle’s ace. To add to that, with the offense finally waking up, both pitchers are now sporting better W-L records. Felix is already 8-1, while Iwakuma is 4-2. At the time of this posting, Iwakuma has a 2.66 ERA with a .93 WHIP, while Felix has a 2.57 ERA and had a 1.03 WHIP.

James Paxton and Taijuan Walker are battling injuries and continue to be held back my nagging setbacks. At the beginning of the season, Paxton was phenomenal. He started off going 2-0 in his first two outings and struck out 13. Walker, the next “Felix” project, is continuing to struggle with pitching a full game. Recently, he has been unable to control his fastball and if no signs of improvement are seen, there might be talk of shutting him down for the season or at least scaling back on his rehab. It is unfortunate news, but also positive news as both these pitchers will be healthy and Seattle has already since a taste of both of them and the hype is warranted.

Normally being three games over .500 would not be cause for a blog post or even celebration. However, after almost 13 years of awful, awful baseball, it finally seems like management has picked the right path and it truly feels like this team is officially climbing the ladder after what seemed like an endless rebuild period. The Mariners will not be winning the World Series any time soon, but it is a step in the right direction and there is finally some hope on the horizon for Mariner fans like myself.